Palava
(named in honour of A. Palau y Verdera, professor of botany at Madrid in the last century). ORD. Malvaceae. A small genus (three or four species) of tomentose or nearly glabrous, hardy or half-hardy, annual herbs, natives of Peru or Chili, and with habit similar to Cristaria. Flowers purple, pedunculate, axillary, solitary; calyx five-fid. Leaves often lobed, sinuate, or dissected. The species thrive in ordinary garden soil. Propagated by seeds, sown on a hotbed in early spring, the seedlings being transplanted to the open border in May.
P. flexuosa (flexuous-stemmed). fl. light mauve, pale towards the centre, with bright red anthers and bases of the petals; sepals purple at base, very much smaller than the obliquely truncate petals. June. l. on slender petioles, 1in. to 2in. long; blade 1in. to 2in. long and broad, oblong-ovate or triangular-ovate, pinnatifid, with one or two pairs of spreading, lobed, or irregularly pinnatifid segments. Stems 8in. to 10in. long. Peru. 1866. (B. M. 5768.)
P. rhombifolia (rhomb-leaved). fl. large, scentless; corolla rose-coloured, flat, thrice as long as the calyx; petals five, obovate, cuneate; peduncles solitary, axillary. Summer. l. 1 3/4in. long, rhomboid, soft. Stem prostrate, branched, hairy. Peru, 1830. (B. M. 3100; B. R. 1375.)