Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

Glade Mallow is an endangered native erect perennial forb growing on stout stems to 6+ feet high, with occasional branching in the upper section. Stems are green, ridged and with sparse fine hair.

The leaves are alternate and huge, 4 to 12 inches long and across, somewhat round in outline with 5 to 9 deep palmate lobes which are coarsely toothed with an under-surface that has fine hair with longer hair on the main ribs. All but the very upper leaves are on long stalks. Upper leaves are sessile. At the base of the leaf stalk are a pair of lanceolate shaped leaf-like stipules which wither away as the plant matures. These are quite large as stipules go.

The inflorescence is a panicle of stalked clusters atop the stem. Each cluster sub-branches into smaller segments. These can be quite large and quite dense.

Flowers: Glade Mallow is dioecious - that is - the male and female flowers are on separate plants. The calyx has a short tubular shape with five outward flaring pointed green lobes while the corolla has 5 white deeply cut spreading lobes (petals). The corolla lobes are oblong, with rounded tips (sometimes pointed). Calyx lobes and flower stalks have sparse fine hair. The open flower ranges from 1/3 to 1/2 inches across. The male flowers have numerous stamens, united at their bases, with short filaments separating only just below the yellowish-tan anthers. These are exserted well beyond the lobes of the corolla. The base of the stamens inside the corolla has whitish hair. Female flowers have an exserted pistil with a 6 to 10 branched style.

Seed: Fertile flowers produce a globular dark brown seed head with a depressed top that splits into 6 to 10 one-seeded flattened wedge or kidney shaped sections (mericarps), each seed about 5 mm long. Seeds require 60 days of cold stratification for germination.

Habitat: Glade Mallow grows from a large, corky, branching taproot. It may grow in full sun to partial shade in woodland opening. Plants in full shade will not be robust. In all cases the plant requires wet-mesic to mesic soil moisture. In the wild it is usually found along stream edges.

Names: The genus Napaea is said to come from the word 'nape' for 'of the glade'. It is also said to be from the Greek napaea for a wood nymph - both meanings would refer to a woodland setting. The species dioica refers to 'dioecious' - with the sexes on separate plants. The author name for the plant classification, 'L.', is for Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Swedish botanist and the developer of the binomial nomenclature of modern taxonomy.