JOURNAL 
OF 
The New York Botanical Garden 
VoL. IV. December, 1903. No, 48 
THE ROSE MALLOWS. 
The large pink-flowered rose mallow, which grows wild in 
swamps, and is especially abundant near the coast from Massachu- 
setts to Florida and Louisiana, was described by Linnaeus under 
the name of Azbiscus Moscheutos, the name by which it has since 
been known ; Linnaeus thought there were two related species, and 
described the other one as Hibiscus palustris, but it has long been 
understood that the two plants which he had in mind are but 
forms of the common pink-flowered species. This plant has 
been under cultivation for a long time, and is one of the most 
beautiful and desirable of large hardy perennials, growing quite as 
well in ordinary soil as it does in its natural habitat in swamps, 
and flowering freely in August and September. 
Quite recently there has been brought into cultivation a plant 
which in foliage very closely resembles the Azdiscus Moscheutos, 
but it has a large white flower with a deep crimson center, and 
has thus been known to gardeners as Aidiscus Moscheutos albus, 
under which name we received plants from the firm of Pitcher 
& Manda in 1896. It has also been called the crimson-eyed 
LTibiscus. 
Owing to the circumstance that the pink-flowered plant has 
been reported as sometimes bearing white flowers, this crimson- 
eyed species has hitherto been regarded as a form or variety of 
flibiscus Moscheutos, but observations made during the past three 
years on the two growing side by side in our herbaceous garden, 
seem to indicate that they are specifically distinct. 
Hibiscus Moscheutos has the pink flowers as above noted, a 
219 
