Mallows, Cottons And Baobabs (Malvales)

This group gathers Flowering Plants subcategory members belonging to the order Malvales, centered on the mallow family Malvaceae in its broad modern sense, which after molecular revision now also includes the plants once classified as the separate families Bombacaceae, Sterculiaceae and Tiliaceae. It spans cultivated cotton, grown worldwide for the fiber surrounding its seeds, the baobabs of Africa and Madagascar, with their enormously swollen water-storing trunks, the kapok tree, the hollyhock, and the linden or lime trees of the genus Tilia (an English common name that, confusingly, has nothing to do with the unrelated citrus fruit of the same name). The order also includes the dipterocarp family Dipterocarpaceae, dominant canopy trees of Southeast Asian rainforests prized for timber and aromatic resin.