Swamp Rose Mallow is a wildflower with large, beautiful flowers. It is found in wet areas, such as marshes, ponds, ditches, wet woods, and shorelines.

This is a fast-growing plant, which needs lots of sun to grow. It can wind up being seven feet tall. Each plant has several hairy stems.

Leaves are large, and either triangle or heart-shaped. The edges have teeth, and they often have reddish veins.

Swamp Rose Mallow flowers are huge, growing up to eight inches wide. They have five petals and a deep red or purple center. Blooming starts in May and continues through September.

Hummingbirds and bumble bees often visit flowers for nectar, and they help the plant by pollinating it.

Mallows are perennial, meaning the stems and flowers die in Winter, but roots survive and send up new stems the following year.

Mark Moran

Some insects which eat Swamp Rose Mallow leaves include Japanese Beetles and Cucumber Beetles. Seeds are eaten by birds, including ducks and Northern Bobwhite. Other plants which grow near Swamp Rose Mallow include bulrushes, reeds, Buttonbush, pondweeds, Lizard's Tail, sedges, and duckweed. Many aquatic animals use mallow as cover, including frogs, snakes, birds, mammals, and insects.

Mark Moran

Relationships in Nature:

Animals Using as Food	Animals Using as Shelter	Associations with Other Plants	OTHER
Mallard	Japanese Beetle	Lizard's Tail	Golden Northern Bumble Bee Po
Wood Duck	Chinese Mantid	Common Duckweed	Ruby-throated Hummingbird Po
Ruby-throated Hummingbird	Goldenrod Spider	Common Reed
Golden Northern Bumble Bee	Bullfrog	Marsh Bulrush
Japanese Beetle	Northern Water Snake	Tussock Sedge
Northern Bobwhite	Eastern Painted Turtle	Buttonbush
	Large Diving Beetle	Long-leaf Pondweed
	Common Whitetail	Pickerelweed
	Common Yellowthroat	Common Cattail
	Eastern Mosquitofish
	Muskrat
	Meadow Vole
	Mallard
	Crayfish
	Common Snapping Turtle
	Predatory Nematode
	Six-spotted Fishing Spider
	Fragile Forktail

Relationship to Humans:

Anyone who sees a Swamp Rose Mallow flower appreciates its beauty. It has also been used to make medicines.

SCIENTIFIC CLASSIFICATION

KINGDOM Plant DIVISION Magnoliophyta CLASS Magnoliopsida ORDER Malvales FAMILY Malvaceae GENUS Hibiscus SPECIES Hibiscus moscheutos

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