Its purplish-rose flowers, from which the
French have derived their word mauve, first applied to this
plant, appear in small clusters on slender pedicels from the leaf
axils along a leafy, rather weak, but ascending stem, maybe only
a foot high, or perhaps a yard, throughout the summer months. The
leaf, borne on a petiole two to six inches long, is divided into
from five to nine shallow, angular, or rounded saw-edged lobes.
Country children eat unlimited quantities of the harmless little
circular, flattened "cheeses" or seed vessels, a characteristic
of the genus Malva. Since the flower invites a great number of
insects to feast on its nectar, secreted in five little pits
(protected for them from the rain by hairs at the base of the
petals), and compels its visitors to wipe off pollen brought from
the pyramidal group of anthers in a newly opened blossom to the
exserted, radiating stigmas of older ones, the mallow produces
more cheeses than all the dairies of the world. So rich is its
store of nectar that the hive-bee, shut out from a legitimate
entrance to the flower when it closes in the late afternoon,
climbs up the outside of the calyx, and inserting his tongue
between the five petals, empties the nectaries one after another
- intelligent rogue that he is!
The LOW, DWARF, or RUNNING MALLOW (M.
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