Tiliaceae
A natural order of trees, shrubs, or rarely herbs, broadly dispersed, numerous in the tropics. Flowers regular, hermaphrodite or rarely unisexual, axillary or terminal, often cymulose; sepals five, rarely three or four, free or connate, often valvate; petals as many or fewer, or none, alternating with the sepals, inserted around the base of the torus, entire or incised; aestivation contorted or variously imbricated, induplicate, or valvate; stamens usually indefinite; filaments free, or connate in a ring of five to ten bundles; anthers two-celled; ovary free, sessile. Fruit two to ten-celled, or, by abortion, one-celled, variable. Leaves alternate, in a few species opposite or nearly so, simple, penninerved or palminerved, entire, toothed, or rarely lobed; stipules twin, usually small and deciduous, rarely larger and persistent or absent. Several of the species in this order furnish materials for making cord. Jute, the fibre of Corchorus capsularis, has, of late, become the rival of hemp in the English market, many thousands of tons being annually imported from India. The order comprises about 46 genera and 330 species. Examples: Aristotelia, Corchorus, Prockia, Tilia, Triumfetta.