Plants annual or perennial herbs, subshrubs, shrubs, or trees, usually with stellate hairs, sometimes with simple hairs. Leaves stipulate; stipules usually subulte to linear; blades simple, sometimes deeply lobed, foliar nectaries sometimes present, margins variously toothed to sub-entire. Inflorescences usually of solitary, axillary flowers, these sometimes merging into terminal inflorescences/ Epicalyces usually present, of 5-20 bracts, bracts free or partly united, sometimes with forked tips; calyces usually more or less deeply 5-lobed, rarely splitting into 2(-3) lobes; petals usually yellow, sometimes red or white, sometimes with a dark base; ovaries usually 5-celled, each cell with 3-many ovules; styles with 5 distinct branches and capitate stigmas. Fruits loculicidal capsules, sometimes separating from the receptacles and breaking up at maturity; seeds 1-many per ceels, renicorm, glabrous to hairy, smooth to tuberculate.
Hibiscus is a large and diverse genus including 200-300 species that are all native to tropical and subtropical regions. Some species are popular ornamental plants.
