ABUTILON (from the Arabic aubutilslae, a name given by

See also:

• AVICENNA

Avicenna to this or an allied genus)  , in botany, a genus of plants, natural order Malvaceae (Mallows), containing about eighty species, and widely distributed in the tropics . They are free-growing shrubs with showy bell-shaped flowers, and are favourite greenhouse plants . They may be grown outside in England during the summer months, but a few degrees of frost is fatal to them . They are readily propagated from cuttings taken in the spring or at the end of the summer . A large number of horticultural varieties have been developed by hybridization, some of which have a variegated foliage .