rotundifolia), a very
common little weed throughout our territory, Europe, and Asia,
depends scarcely at all upon insects to transfer its pollen, as
might be inferred from its unattractive pale blue to white
flowers, that measure only about half an inch across. In default
of visitors, its pollen-laden anthers, instead of drooping to get
out of the way of the stigmas, as in the showy high mallow,
remain extended so as to come in contact with the rough, sticky
sides of the long curling stigmas. The leaves of this spreading
plant, which are nearly round, with five to nine shallow,
saw-edged lobes, are thin, and furnished with long petioles;
whereas the flowers which spring from their axils keep close to
the main stem. Usually there are about fifteen rounded carpels
that go to make up the Dutch, doll, or fairy cheeses, as the seed
vessels are called by children. Only once is the mallow mentioned
in the Bible, and then as food for the most abject and despised
poor (Job 30: 4); but as eighteen species of mallow grow in
Palestine, who is the higher critic to name the species eaten?
Occasionally we meet by the roadside in Canada, the Eastern,
Middle, and Southern States pink, sometimes white, flowers, about
two inches across, growing in small clusters at the top of a stem
a foot or two high, the whole plant emitting a faint odor of
musk.
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