Herbs, subshrubs, shrubs, or small trees. Stipules usually caducous; leaf blade usually entire (lobed in A. pictum), palmately veined, base cordate, margin crenate or serrate. Flowers axillary or subterminal, solitary, paired or in small cymes, often aggregated into terminal panicles. Epicalyx absent. Calyx campanulate, lobes 5. Corolla mostly yellow or orange (red in A. roseum), often with dark center, campanulate to wheel-shaped, rarely ± tubular (A. pictum); petals 5, basally connate and adnate to filament tube. Anthers many, clustered at filament tube apex. Ovary (5-)7-20-loculed; ovules 2-9 per carpel; style branches as many as carpels. Fruit a schizocarp, often blackish when mature, subglobose to hemispherical; mericarps (5-)7-20, eventually dehiscent, apex rounded or acute, sometimes 2-awned, pericarp leathery. Seeds reniform, glabrous or slightly pubescent.

Several species have become widespread tropical weeds. One species, Abutilon pictum, is widely grown as an ornamental. Paul (Fl. India 3: 269-270. 1993) indicates that A. persicum (N. L. Burman) Merrill occurs in China but we have seen no material or other records. If this species should be found, it would be distinguished by the 5-loculed ovary and gland-tipped hairs on the stems.

About 200 species: mostly in tropics and subtropics; nine species (three endemic, one introduced) in China.