Photographed June 22.Photographed June 22.Family Malvaceae (Mallow Family).
Also known as Cheeses, because the seedpods look like tiny wheels of cheese. This little mallow grows in yards and vacant lots all over the city. Its flowers are small, but up close are obviously similar to Rose of Sharon, Hollyhock, and other members of the Mallow family. The blooming season is very long, and can last into the winter if the weather is warmer than average.
Photographed June 27.
Photographed May 15. Gray lists this species as M. rotundifolia:
MALVA [Tourn.] L. MALLOW. Calyx with a 3-leaved
involucel at the base, like an outer calyx. Petals
obcordate. Styles numerous, stigmatic down the inner
side. Fruit depressed, separating at maturity into as
many 1-seeded and indehiscent round kidney-shaped
blunt carpels as there are styles. Radicle pointing
downward. (An old Latin name, from the Greek name, malache,
having allusion to the emollient leaves.)
Flowers fascicled in the axils.
M. rotundifòlia L. (COMMON M., CHEESES.)
Stems procumbent from a deep biennial root; leaves
round-heart-shaped, on very long petioles, crenate,
obscurely lobed; petals twice the length of the calyx,
whitish; carpels pubescent, even. —Waysides and
cultivated grounds, common. (Nat. from Eu.)
