Read About the Mallow Family
MALLOW FAMILY (Malvaceae)
Swamp Rose-mallow; Mallow Rose
Hibiscus Moscheutos
Flowers--Very large, clear rose pink, sometimes white, often with
crimson centre, 4 to 7 in. across, solitary, or clustered on peduncles at
summit of stems. Calyx 5-cleft, subtended by numerous narrow bractlets; 5
large, veined petals; stamens united into a valvular column bearing anthers
on the outside for much of its length; 1 pistil partly enclosed in the
column, and with 5 button-tipped stigmatic branches above. Stem: 4 to
7 ft. tall, stout, from perennial root. Leaves: 3 to 7 in. long,
tapering, pointed, egg-shaped, densely white, downy beneath; lower leaves,
or sometimes all, lobed at middle.
Preferred Habitat--Brackish marshes, riversides, lake shores,
saline situations.
Flowering Season--August-September.
Distribution--Massachusetts to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to
Louisiana; found locally in the interior, but chiefly along Atlantic
seaboard.
Stately ranks of these magnificent flowers, growing among the tall sedges
and "cat-tails" of the marshes, make the most insensate traveler exclaim at
their amazing loveliness. To reach them one must don rubber boots and risk
sudden seats in the slippery ooze; nevertheless, with spade in hand to give
one support, it is well worth while to seek them out and dig up some roots
to transplant to the garden. Here, strange to say, without salt soil or more
water than the average garden receives from showers and hose, this
handsomest of our wild flowers soon makes itself delightfully at home under
cultivation. Such good, deep earth, well enriched and moistened, as the
hollyhock thrives in, suits it perfectly. Now we have a better opportunity
to note how the bees suck the five nectaries at the base of the petals, and
collect the abundant pollen of the newly-opened flowers, which they perforce
transfer to the five button-shaped stigmas intentionally impeding the
entrance to older blossoms. Only its cousin the hollyhock, a native of
China, can vie with the rose-mallow's decorative splendor among the
shrubbery; and the Rose of China (Hibiscus Rosa-Sinensis), cultivated
in greenhouses here, eclipse it in the beauty of the individual blossom.
This latter flower, whose superb scarlet corolla stains black, is employed
by the Chinese married women, it is said, to discolor their teeth; but in
the West Indies it sinks to even greater ignominy as a dauber for blacking
shoes!
Marsh Mallow (Althaea officinalis), a name frequently misapplied
to the Swamp Rose-mallow, is properly given to a much smaller pink flower,
measuring only an inch and a half across at the most, and a far rarer one,
being a naturalized immigrant from Europe found only in the salt marshes
from the Massachusetts coast to New York. It is also known as Wymote. This
is a bushy, leafy plant, two to four feet high, and covered with velvety
down as a protection against the clogging of its pores by the moisture
arising from its wet retreats. Plants that live in swamps must "perspire"
freely and keep their pores open. From the Marsh Mallow's thick roots the
mucilage used in confectionery is obtained, a soothing demulcent long
esteemed in medicine.
|
