Lavatera. MALVACE^. 299 



Huds. ri. Ang. 307, not L. M. horealis [" Wallm. in "] Liljebl. Sv. Fl. ed. 3, 374 ; Eeiclienb. 

 Ic. Bot. Crit. t. 20; Fl. Dan. t. 1825; E. G. Baker, Jour. Bot. xxviii. 341. M. Nicaensis, 

 of several Am. authors, not of AUioni. — Ceotr. and S. California, about dwellings, &c., con 

 siderably less frequent than the last, from which it can sometimes scarcely be distinguished ; 

 also rarely found on ballast in the Atlantic States. (Nat. from Eu.) 



2. ALTH^A, Tourn. (Ancient Greek and Latin name of Marsh Mal- 

 low, from aXOiji, to heal.) — Old World herbs ; A. rosea, Cav., the Hollyhock, 

 common in cultivation, and the following sparingly naturalized. — Inst. 97 ; L. 

 Gen. no. 561. 



A. OFFICINALIS, L. (Marsh Mallow.) Perennial from a thick and deep root (which 

 yields the mucilage for which the plant is officinal), 2 to 4 feet high, branching, tomentose- 

 canescent : leaves broadly ovate, serrate, partly incised or 3-lobed : peduncles axillary, 

 short, several-flowered : flowers short-pedicelled : petals pale rose-color, half inch long : 

 carpels 15 to 20. — Spec. ii. 686; Fl. Dan. t. 530; Woodv. Med. i. t. 53; Torr. & Gray, Fl. 

 i. 229. — Borders of salt marshes, New England and New York, also in a few places west- 

 ward and southward to Michigan and Arkansas ; fl. summer. (Nat. from Eu.) 



A.* cannAbina, L. (Spec. ii. 686), readily distinguished from the preceding by its digi- 

 tately 5-parted or -divided leaves, has been found more or less established in vacant lots in 

 Washington, D. C, G. Oliver (ace. to Holm, Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. vii. 40). 



3. LAVATERA, Tourn. (Dedicated by Tournefort to one of the family 

 Lavater, a physician, of Zurich.) — Mem. Acad. Paris, 1706, 86, t. 7 ; L. Gen. 

 no. 558; Dill. Cat. PI. Giss. App. 155, t. 10.^ — Founded on the common an- 

 nual L. trimestris, L., of the gardens (§ Stegia, DC), which has an umbrella- 

 shaped top to the axis of the fruit. In the other sections of the genus the top is 

 conical, either large or small. All Old World plants (most of them shrubby), 

 except the following, of the § Saviniona (Saviniona, Webb & Berth. Phyt. Can. 

 i. 30), which are insular arborescent shrubs (Canarian and Californian !) with 

 long-petioled maple-shaped leaves, small caducous stipules, and a distinct joint in 

 the flower-stalk at some distance below the flower. 



L. assurgentiflora, Kellogg. Shrub with simple stems, 6 to 15 feet high, soft-puberu- 

 lent or glabrate, the young parts sometimes canescent : leaves 5-7-cleft, 3 to 6 (or at largest 

 even 9) inches broad; lobes ovate-triangular, coarsely and irregularly obtusely dentate: 

 pedicels few in the fascicles or rarely solitary, slender, inch or two long, commonly recurved- 

 assurgent : bractlets of the 3-parted involucel oblong-lanceolate, shorter than the triangular 

 moderately accrescent calyx-lobes : petals cuneiform and truncate or obcordate, inch or 

 more long, mauve-purple and darker-veined ; claw liearded-pubescent at base : column gla- 

 brous : fruit below strongly winged between the carpels and apex not dilated nor exserted ; 

 mature carpels 6 to 8, turgid, roundish and nearly nerveless on the back, glabrous or almost 

 so. — Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci. i. 11, 14; Brew. & Wats. Bot. Calif, i. 83, ii. 437. — Islands off 

 the coast of S. California, Anacapa,^ San Cleraente, San Miguel, &c., and naturalized or 

 cultivated on the mainland as far north as San Francisco ; ^ fl. from earliest spring. Near 

 the Canarian L. acerifolia, Cav., and considerably variable. 



1 Add E. G. Baker, Jour. Bot. xxviii. 210 (et seq.), and for further literature on the origin and 

 distribution of the Pacific species of this interesting and geographically dissevered genus, see Le Conte, 

 Bull. Calif. Acad. Sci. ii. 516; Greene, Gard. & For. iil. 378, 379, & Pittonia, i. 260-263 ; Brandegee, 

 Zoe, 1. 109, 189; Parish, ibid. 300. 



2 Upon the small rocky Island of Anacapa, from which, it is said, the original specimens were 

 secured, the species has not since been observed and may now be extinct, although found on various 

 neighboring islands. 



" Mr. T. S. Brandegee (Zoe, i. 189) states that it is cultivated as far north as Mendocino Co., Calif., 

 and inland to the foot-hills of the Sierras. 



