2. Malva neglecta Wallr. (common mallow, cheeses)

Pl. 453 g, h; Map 2057

Plants annual or perennial. Stems 15–100 cm long, spreading to ascending, sparsely pubescent with simple and stellate hairs. Stipules 3–6 mm long, narrowly triangular to ovate-triangular. Leaf blades 1–5 cm long, flat or slightly crisped along the margins, circular to broadly kidney-shaped in outline, unlobed or broadly and very shallowly 5-lobed (much less than 1/2 way to the base), the margins finely scalloped or toothed, the surfaces glabrous or sparsely pubescent with mostly stellate hairs, especially at the base. Flowers in axillary clusters, long-stalked at flowering, the bractlets subtending the calyx linear to narrowly oblong-lanceolate, stellate-hairy on the undersurface and with mostly simple or fasciculate hairs along the margins. Calyces 4–7 mm long at flowering, expanding to 8 mm long at fruiting, initially cup-shaped, not or only slightly enlarged and flattened horizontally at fruiting, at least the lobes remaining green, herbaceous, and without a distinct network of veins, the outer surface pubescent with mostly stellate hairs, the marginal hairs all less than 0.5 mm long. Petals 0.6–1.2 cm long, about twice as long as the calyx at flowering, white, light pink, or pale lavender. Fruits 1.5–2.0 mm long, the dorsal surface rounded, slightly roughened or with a faint reticulate pattern of thickenings, not transversely wrinkled, usually minutely stellate-hairy, the junction between the dorsal and lateral surfaces rounded or bluntly angled, the sides thin and papery, without visible veins. Seeds 1.0–1.5 mm long. 2n=42. April–October.

Introduced, scattered nearly throughout the state (native of Europe, Asia, Africa, widely naturalized in the U.S. and Canada). Banks of rivers and margins of ponds and lakes; also roadsides, railroads, crop fields, pastures, lawns, farm yards, and open disturbed areas.

This is the commonest and most widely distributed species of Malva in Missouri. The depressed central axis to which the carpels are attached is unusually broad in this species, up to 1/3 the diameter of the ring of fruits (less than 1/5 the diameter in M. pusilla and most M. parviflora). See the treatment of M. pusilla for a discussion of the confusion surrounding the name M. rotundifolia, which was misapplied to plants of M. neglecta by many earlier authors.