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LAVATERA arborea.
Sea Tree-Mallow.
ƒ X
MONADELPHIA Polyandria.
G e n . C h a r . Cal. double; the outermost 3-cleft. Capsules
numerous, circularly arranged. Seeds solitary.
S p e c . C h a r . Stem arborescent. Leaves downy, plaited,
with seven angles. Flower-stalks axillary, clustered,
single-flowered.
S y n . Lavatera arborea. Linn. Sp. PI. 972. Sm. FI.
B rit. 7 4 2 . Huds. 3 0 6 . With. 614. Hull. 154.
Light}. 374. _ .. ,
Malva arborea marina nostras. Ran Syn. 252.
T h E Tree Mallow grows wild on several parts of the southwest
coast of Britain, as well as on the east coast of Scotland,
on rocky cliffs, flowering in July, and often producing a long
succession of bloom. In a garden, whence our s'pecimen was
taken, the plant often remains some years'without blossoming,
but dies in the winter after it has flowered, being naturally
biennial. Seeds scattered in the ground will some of
them keep springing up every season, for an indeterminate
number of years; but the young plants are impatient of cold,
except in maritime situations, and few of them survive even a
single winter.
The root is deep and much branched, Stem 6 to 10 feet
high, upright, straight, round, thick, simple, except in the
upper part, where it forms a branching leafy head, It is
clothed with clusters of small deflexed bristles. Leaves alternate,
on long stalks, pliable and downy, of seven shallow
crenate lobes. Flowers on simple axillary clustered stalks,
very much like those of J\Palva sylvestiis, t. 671. Outer
calyx deeply divided into 3 large lobes, but not, as in Malva,
formed of 3 separate leaves, a slight and rather artificial di-
stinctipn.