58 SPRING FLORA 



1. MALVA. Mallow. 



Pubescent or glabrate herbs, of erect, ascending or prostrate 

 habit. Flowers perfect. Calyx with a 3-leaved involucel at 

 base, which looks like an outer calyx. Stigmas linear. Carpels 

 crowded side by side in a circle, all together resembling a 

 cushion. Fruit a schizocarp. 



1. M. rotimdifolia L. Cheeses. Annual or biennial herb from 

 a long tap-root. Stems glabrate; procumbent to ascending'. 

 Leaves long-petioled; round-cordate with crenate margins. 

 Flowers axillary. Petals narrowly obcordate; whitish with 

 pink veins. Carpels about 15, pubescent; half as long as the 

 petals. Very common; in waste places. May-August. 



2. MAL.VASTRUM. Star-mallow. 



Annual or perennial herbs, often tufted. Leaves entire or 

 palmately lobed, cleft or divided. Flowers perfect, showy, in 

 naked or leafy subpaniculate racemes. Calyx 5-cleft, 1-3- 

 bracted or naked. Stigmas capitate. Carpels 5 or more, de- 

 hiscent; each cell of the ovary 1-seeded, the seed ascending. 



1. 31. cocciiieum (Pursh) A. Gray. Red 'False Mallow. (Lo- 

 cally called "Slippery Elm.") A bushy perennial; erect or 

 ascending; abundantly covered with a scurfy stellate pubes- 

 cence; spreading by slender creeping rhizomes. Leaves pal- 

 mately 3-5-parted or divided, the divisions wedge-shaped, 2-3- 

 lobed. Flowers brick-red, % inch in diameter. Carpels 10-15. 

 In dry soil in fields and waste places. May-October. Very 

 variable. 



la. M. coccinium dissectum (Nutt.) (M. dissectum (Nutt.) 

 A. Nels.) Leaves covered with a hoary-white pubescence; dis- 

 sected into narrow segments. 



Ib. M. coccinium datum E. G. Baker. (M. elatum (E. G. B.) 

 A Nels.) An erect, less-branched form with stems several from 

 the same root, 12-20 inches high. Leaf -divisions wedge-shaped, 

 as in the type. 



3. SPHAERAL.CEA. Globe Mallow. 



Differing from Malvastrum only in that the carpels are 

 2-3-seeded. (Sometimes the carpels of this genus will be only 

 1-seeded, in which case the upper part of the carpel will be 

 empty.) 



Stems rather slender, 1-2 ft. high; petals scarlet 1. S. Munroana 

 Stems stout, 2-6 ft. high; petals pink or white... 2. S. rivularis 



1. S. Munroana (Dougl.) Spa<^i. (Malvastrum Munroanum 

 Gray.) A perennial with leafy, densely stellate-pubescent 

 stems. Leaves cordate, the 3-5 obtuse lobes crenate. Corolla 

 less than an inch in diameter; petals obovate. Mature carpels 

 kidney-shaped, rounded at summit, pubescent on back. Dry 

 soil. June-July. 



2. S. rivularis (Hook.) Torr. (S. acerifolia Nutt.) Rose of 

 Sharon. An erect, stellate-pubescent perennial, sometimes 

 bushy. Leaves large (2-6 inches in diameter), 5-7 palmately- 

 lobed or parted, their shape much resembling that of the 

 maple. Flowers l-iy 2 in. across, mostly in subpaniculate ra- 

 cemes. Calyx with an involucel of 3 bractlets. Carpels sev- 



