Mallow

Mallow, the popular name of the genus Malva, which gives its name to the dicotyledonous order Malvaoeae, and of some allied plants such as the marsh-mallow, Altkcca officinalis. Malva comprises about 16 species of herbaceous plants, natives of the northern hemisphere, three of which are British. The leaves are palmately-veined; the flowers, white or pink: there is an involucre of three small bracts below each flower: the five persistent sepals are valvate and united; the five petals, convolute and slightly united; the five stamens, at a very early stage copiously branched and united in a tube (monadelphous), the filaments bearing kidney-shaped one-chambered anthers, which split transversely; and the numerous one-seeded carpels are united in a ring, known to country children as "cheeses," round a short carpophore. The pinkish-purple petals of the common mallow (M. sylvestris), known in France as mauve, which are marked with distinct honey-guides, or lines to guide insects to the honey, have given its name to the aniline dye, mauve. The root of the marsh-mallow, being, like all the group, rich in mucilage, is used in making guimauve cough lozenges.