CALLIRRHOE INVOLUCRATA. 



PURPLi: POPPY-MALLOW. 



NATURyM. ORDER, MALVACE/K. 



CallirrhoB INVOLUCRATA, Asa Gray. — Stems spreading on the ground, one to three feet 

 long; stipules conspicuous; leaves rounded, five-parted or cleft and cut-lobed, shorter 

 than the axillary peduncle ; involucre shorter than the calyx ; corolla two inches or more 

 broad; carpels of the fruit reticulated, tipped with a flat and niconspicuous beak. (Gray's 

 Field, Forest, and Garden Botany. See also Porter's Flora of Colorado, and Torrey and 

 Gray's Flora of North America, under Malva im'olucrata.) 



ALLIRRHOE, says Dr. Gray, is "a Greek mythological 

 name applied to North American plants." But this 

 meagre piece of information only whets the appetite for more, 

 as everybody is of course curious to know the precise reason 

 why this mythological name was given to our flower. 



According to the ancient legends, Callirrhdc, "the beautifully 

 flowing " (from two Greek words, signifying " beautiful " and " a 

 stream," or "something flowing"), was a nymph of the sea, one of 

 the daughters of Oceanus and Tethys, and after her was named 

 a beautiful fountain at Athens, which exists to this day, and from 

 which flow nine streams in different directions. As the flower- 

 ing branches of our Callirrhdc trail along the ground, and ema- 

 nate from one central point, like so many pretty little streams 

 starting from one fountain-head, it might be fancied that the 

 name was suggested by the similarity to the " beautifully flow- 

 ins " well at Athens. 



Still another theory might, however, be advanced, connecting 

 the name of the plant with that of one of its relatives, with 

 which it was formerly associated in one genus. The first 

 known species of the genus now called Callirrhdc was thought 



