Landscape Plants

Some 25 species of annual, biennial, and perennial herbs or soft wooded shrubs.  Leaves simple, palmately angled or lobed, long petiole.  Flowers showy, calyx in 3-9 segments that are fused at the base to form a shallow cup, 5 petals, white or rose-purple.  Native to Mediterranean to northwest Himalaya, central Asia, eastern Siberia, Australia, and Baja California and California (including L. assurgentiflora, Malva Rosa).
Lavatera: after the Lavater brothers, 16th century Zurich naturalists.