Credit: John Nelson
Flowers, of course, come in quite an assortment of sizes. The smallest flowers you are likely to see probably belong to the tiny, floating duckweeds. And the largest flowers of trees in North America must surely belong to various species of magnolia. But which wildflower has the biggest bloom? Could it be this one?
It's a native species common from New England and Ontario south to Florida and well into the Midwest and Texas. Technically, it is an herbaceous plant, but it grows from a massive root system and often looks like a shrub, with branching stalks that can be up to 8 feet tall. It really likes sunny, wet places, and you will see it in marshes, ditches, damp meadows, and along open, wet power lines. (Because of the droughts we are experiencing this season, 2024 might not be the best year for it.)
The flowers can be fully 8 inches across when fully opened—usually around midday when it's bright. The broad leaves are dark green above and whitish or gray beneath. Each flower is on a long stalk, and each stalk bears a small leaf. The color of the flowers varies among populations but is most often white; the petals may be milky white to creamy, or even pale yellowish. (Rarely, there are plants with pink petals.) Whatever their shade, each of the five petals bears a striking ruby-red blotch at its base. When the open flower is viewed from the front, it presents a very conspicuous visual display called an "eye." This eye acts as a target and is probably attractive to visiting hummingbirds. This species blooms over a long period and is one of our “late summer” species. Toward autumn, the flowers are replaced with drying capsules, which split open and release seeds. Each seed is dark brown and about the size of a large BB.
Our plant is a member of the family Malvaceae and is thus related to cotton, okra, and garden hollyhocks. (There are a lot of weedy species in this family too.) In this family, the pollen-bearing stamens of a single flower are characteristically fused into a hollow column that surrounds the pistil. The end of the pistil branches into several receptive stigmas, usually five.
The roots of this plant, or at least some of its close relatives, have long been known as a source of sweet gum. An old-time confection used to be made from boiled-down roots, which, when mixed with sugar, would yield the earliest form of marshmallows. (Marshmallows you buy in a store these days are not made this way. They are completely artificial, made of gelatin and sugar.)
The scientific name of this species, at first glance, suggests the word "mosquito," but the plant has nothing to do with the insect other than commonly living in the same place. Rather, the scientific species name means "musky," although I haven't been able to detect much of an odor from the flowers.
John Nelson is the retired curator of the Herbarium at the University of South Carolina. As a public service, the Herbarium offers free plant identifications. For more information, call 803-777-8175 or email johnbnelson@sc.rr.com.
[Answer: "Swamp mallow," Hibiscus moscheutos]