Introduced. Perennial. Propagates by seeds.

Time of bloom: June to August.

Seed-time: July to September.

Range: Eastern Canada, New England, and Middle States.

Habitat: Meadows, roadsides, and waste places.

A very handsome plant, an escape from gardens, objectionable in meadows and pastures, for cattle dislike its musky odor and hard, woody stalks and usually leave it to reproduce itself. Stems one to two feet high, slender, clothed with soft hair or sometimes smooth. Base-leaves rounded, with five to nine shallow, scallop-toothed lobes, slender-petioled; stem-leaves deeply five-parted, the

Fig. 197. - Common Mallow (Malva rotundifolia). X 1/3 segments again deeply cut or pinnatifid, very short-petioled. Flowers clustered at the ends of stem and branches and in the upper axils, often nearly two inches broad, pale rose-color or white, pink-veined, the central column of many styles and anthers nearly a half-inch in height; calyx with five short, triangular-ovate, very hairy lobes. Carpels fifteen to twenty, arranged in a circle, also densely hairy.

Means Of Control

Close cutting before the development of any seeds, repeating the treatment as the plants send up new shoots from the roots.