Introduced. Annual. Propagates by seeds.

Time of bloom: Late May to September.

Seed-time: July to October.

Range: Maine to Michigan, Iowa, and Kansas, southward to

Florida and Texas. Habitat: Dry clay soils; fields, gardens, pastures, and waste places.

An emigrant from tropical America, which is gradually gaining ground to the north and the west. Stems eight to twenty inches high, erect, much branched, downy-hairy. Leaves alternate, one to two inches long, ovate to lance-shaped, scallop-toothed, downy-hairy, with base rounded or abruptly narrowed to petioles about half as long as the blades; at the base of some of the larger leaves is a small, pointed tubercle, which gives the plant its name though it is hardly long enough or sharp enough to be called a spine. Flowers light yellow, only about a quarter-inch broad, on short axillary peduncles; calyx with five teeth, shorter than the obovoid petals; styles five with undivided stigmas, surrounded by united stamens. Fruit ovoid, containing five carpels, each splitting at the top into two beaks. Seeds triangular, smooth, dark brown. (Fig. 195.)

Fig. 194. -Red False Mallow (Mal-vastrum coccineum). X 1/3.

1 Manual of Poisonous Plants.

Means Of Control

Deep hoe-cutting while in early bloom. Mowing the plants leaves stubs, which hasten to produce new stalks and require attention a second time; but deep cutting kills.