Minnesota Plant Life. 



323 



employed principally in the manufacture of wood pulp or paper 

 and in the production of some kinds of furniture and wooden- 

 ware. The inner bark, which is papery, is used by nur-< 

 men to tie buds into scions. The basswood is a very desir- 

 able shade tree and is frequently planted in dooryards and 

 along streets. The European basswood or linden, which ^ives 

 the name to the famous street ''Untcr den Linden" of the Ger- 

 man capital, is sometimes planted in the United States, but 

 is not particularly abundant in Minnesota. Unlike the Amer- 

 ican species, it has no scales at the base of the petals in the 

 flow r er. 



Mallows. The mallow r family includes a little group of herbs, 

 mostly introduced from Europe, such as the hollyhock, the 

 creeping-charley or cheese plant, the velvetleaf, the ketmias or 

 rose-mallows and some others. There are a few native species, 

 none of which is very common. Among them are the Collir- 

 rhoe and false mallow of the southwestern corner of the state, 

 the glade-mallow r , a rare plant of the southwestern section, and 

 the halberd-leafed rose-mallow, found occasionally along the 

 Mississippi river in the vicinity of the Twin Cities. 



Mallows may be distinguished from other plants by the devel- 

 opment in the flower of large numbers of stamens all blended 

 together by their bases into a tube which surrounds the fruit- 

 rudiment. The latter has several compartments and encloses 

 one or two seeds in each. The embryo is curved and con- 

 tains albumen. Sometimes the flowers are large and shuwy. 

 as in the hollyhock, while in other varieties they are rather 

 small. The common round-leafed mallow or creeping-charley, 

 also known as cheese plant, from its disk-shaped little fruit- 

 bodies, sometimes eaten by children, is a common plant in 

 dooryards and waste places. The flower is like that of the 

 hollyhock, only much smaller and of a pale blue color. The high 

 mallow is an erect plant of biennial growth, with fruits quite 

 similar to the creeping variety and leaves shaped like those of 

 currants. The crisp mallow has the margins of the leaves crisped 

 like some varieties of lettuce, while the general shape of the 

 leaves reminds one very much of the high mallow. The Cul- 

 lirrhoes, of which at least one variety, and probably two. are to 

 be found in Minnesota, are known also as poppy-mallows. They 



