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Sterculiaceae (Natural order of usually)

A natural order of usually soft-wooded herbs, shrubs, or trees, mostly inhabiting tropical and sub-tropical regions. Flowers regular, hermaphrodite or unisexual; calyx gamosepalous, usually persistent, more or less deeply five-cleft, rarely four or threecleft, the lobes valvate; petals five, hypogynous, free or adnate at base with the staminal tube, often marcescent-persistent, twisted-imbricated, or wanting; stamens very variable; inflorescence axillary or rarely terminal, racemose or cymose-paniculate, or rarely reduced to a solitary flower. Fruit dry or rarely baccate. Leaves alternate, or very rarely nearly opposite, sometimes simple, penninerved or palminerved, entire, toothed, or lobed, sometimes digitately three to nine-foliolate; stipules at the bases of the petioles, very rarely wanting. Sterculiaceae contain an abundant mucilage, combined, in the old bark of the woody species, with a bitter, astringent matter, and are emetics and stimulants. The dried and split cotyledons of the seeds of Theobroma Cacao are called cocoa nibs, and, when ground and made into a paste, chocolate. The seeds comprise, among other properties, a fixed and solid oil, known as cocoa butter. The order embraces about forty-six genera, and 520 species. These are classified, by the authors of the "Genera Plantarum," under seven tribes: Buettnerieae, Dombeyeae, Eriolaeneae, Helictereae, Hermannieae, Lasiopetaleae, and Sterculieae. Illustrative genera are: Buettneria, Cola, Commersonia, Helicteres, Lasiopetalum, Sterculia.