The flowers are rather small, grouped in clusters in the centre of the terminal cluster of margined leaves. The staminate and pistillate flowers are on different plants. The involucre is five-parted and has five white petals.
When broken both the leaves and stems exude quantities of a milky juice. This species of Spurge grows in dry soil from Minn. and Ohio west to Colorado, and is sometimes found in parts of the East.
JEWEL-WEED FAMILY
(Balsaminaceæ)
Jewel-weed; Spotted Touch-me-not (Impatiens biflora) is a common rank-growing herb with a stout but fragile branching stem. The large, inflated flower-sac, which is really one of the three sepals, is orange-yellow, spotted with brown. Two of these singular flowers droop from the ends of each thread-like peduncle, but only one flowers at a time.
The slim seed-pod is the cause of two very commonly applied names—Touch-me-not and Snapweed. When nearly ripe these pods can scarcely be touched but what they will suddenly, almost explosively, burst and scatter their seeds in all directions. One not acquainted with their ways is always startled when he accidentally brushes against the mature Touch-me-not.
The leaves are very delicate in appearance, and their light, slender stems are almost translucent; they are ovate, round-toothed, dull-green above, and whitish-green below. Common in shady places throughout the United States.
MALLOW FAMILY
(Malvaceæ)
Common Mallow; Cheeses (Malva rotundifolia) (European) is a very common weed about dooryards, especially in the country, and along the edges of cultivated fields. The long stalks spring from biennial roots and creep over the ground, the branches being 6 to 24 inches in length. The dark-green, round leaves are very handsome; they have a shallow-lobed and very firmly toothed edge and are deeply, palmately ribbed. The leaves, their stems and the plant stems are rather rough.