Geraniaceae

Annual or perennial herbs (in Malesia) or shrubs with simple and capitateglandular hairs. Leaves opposite or alternate, petioled, usually stipulate: blade dentate and/or lobed, dissected or even compound (very rarely entire but not so in Malesia). Flowers bisexual, regular or irregular, protandrous, solitary and terminal or arranged in terminal cymes which appear to be axillary due to sympodial growth. Sepals 5 (rarely 4 and not so in Malesia), persistent. Petals equal in number to sepals (rarely absent), free. Stamens as many as petals or twice as many (rarely three times as many but not in Malesia), free or connate, some frequently staminodal, hypogynous. Ovary usually 5-locular with 1-2 ± superposed pendulous ovules in each cell. Fruit a schizocarp (sometimes a capsule but not so in Malesia) splitting into 5 one-seeded mericarps each bearing part (an awn) of the elongated style (rostrum). Seeds with or without endosperm. Distribution. Genera 11 and c. 600 spp., centred in southern Africa but very widespread in temperate parts of the world, in the tropics mainly at higher altitudes, in Malesia exclusively so.