Compilation
Althaea burchellii

Erect to spreading, occasionally decumbent to subscandent suffrutex or shrub up to c. 1 m. tall, biennial or perennial, varying from sparsely and sometimes minutely stellate- or glandular-pubescent to stellate-tomentose, sometimes also with longer patent hairs or fairly densely pilose; stems herbaceous or wiry, terete, slender, reddish or yellowish or greenish, ultimately glabrous and covered with a thin dark-grey to brown dark purple or black thin smooth or finely fissured bark. Leaf-lamina 2–8 × 1–7 cm., usually ovate-pentagonal in outline, often shallowly 3–5-lobed, with a usually deep and narrow basal sinus (the basal lobes sometimes overlapping) and subacute to acute lobes, margin as a rule coarsely and somewhat irregularly crenate to crenate-serrate, both surfaces usually stellate-pubescent but the paler lower surface more densely so or occasionally tomentose; petiole up to c. 8 cm. long, usually slender and hairy like the stems; stipules up to c. 5 mm. long, setaceous, pubescent, usually caducous. Flowers white, pale yellow, cream or orange, with or without a reddish centre, solitary in the upper leaf-axils; pedicels up to c. 5 cm. long, rarely longer, slender, terete, pubescent, articulated in the upper 10–15 mm. Epicalyx rotate; bracts S (6), 7–11 mm. long, oblong to ovate-lanceolate or subrhomboid, acuminate to acuminate-caudate, usually obtuse, 5-nerved, with or without long simple hairs in addition to a stellate pubescence, usually ciliate, green and herbaceous but accrescent in fruit and ultimately light brown. Calyx campanulate-cupulate, paler and thinner in texture than the epicalyx, variously pubescent, usually divided a little beyond the middle; lobes c. 5 mm. long, broadly ovate to somewhat rhombic, acute or shortly acuminate, 5-nerved. Petals 10–15 mm. long, often sparsely and finely stellate-pubescent outside towards the apex. Staminal tube usually glabrous. Mericarps c. 5 × 4 × 3 mm., yellow or light brown when ripe, obliquely triquetrous-obovoid, muticous, dorsally keeled and with warty protuberances or muricate, laterally with 4–5 ridges, the latter and the protuberances often crowned with sparse stellate hairs (at least when immature). Seeds c. 3–5 × 2 mm., obliquely obovoid-pyriform, somewhat angular, glabrous.