92 MALVACEAE. 



MALVACEAE. 



RADIX AI.THJEJE 

 Marshmiallow Root; F. Racine de Guimauve; G. Ehischwurzd. 



Botanical Origin — Althwa offi.cinalis L., the marshmallow, grows 

 in moist places throughout Europe, Asia Minor, and the temperate 

 ])arts of Western and Northern Asia, but is by no means universally 

 distributed. It prefers saline localities such as in Spain the salt 

 marshes of Saragossa, the low-lying southern coasts of France near 

 Montpellier, Southern Russia, and the neighbourhood of salt-springs in 

 Central Europe. In southern Siberia Althaea has been met with by 

 Semenoff (1857) ascending as high as 3,000 feet in the Alatau mountains, 

 south of the Balkash Lake. 



In Britain it occurs in the low grounds bordering the Thames below 

 London, and here and there in many other spots in the south of Eng- 

 land and of Ireland. 



The cultivated marshmallow thrives as far north as Throndhjem in 

 Norway, and has been naturalized in North America (salt marshes of 

 New England and New York) and Australia. It is largely cultivated 

 in Bavaria and Wiirtemberg. 



History — Marshmallow had many uses in ancient medicine, and is 

 described by Dioscorides as 'AXOala, a name derived from the Greek 

 verb aXOeii/, to heal. 



The diffusion of the plant in Europe during the middle ages was 

 promoted by Charlemagne who enjoined^ its culture (a.d. 812) under 

 the name of " Misnialvas, id est alteas quod dicitur ibischa." 



Description — The plant has a perennial root attaining about a foot 

 in length and an inch in diameter. For medicinal use the biennial 

 roots of the cultivated plant are chiefly employed. When fresh they 

 are externally yellowish and wrinkled, white within and of tender 

 fleshy texture. Previous to drying, the thin outer and a portion of the 

 middle bark are scraped off, and the small root filaments are removed. 

 The drug thus prepared and dried consists of simple whitish sticks 

 G to 8 inches long, of the thickness of the little finger to that of a quill, 

 deeply furrowed longitudinally and marked with brownish scars. Its 

 central portion, which is pure white, breaks with a short fi-acture, but 

 the bark is tough and fibrous. The dried root is rather flexible and 

 easily cut. Its transverse section shows the central woody column 

 of undulating outline separated from the thick bark by a fine dark out- 

 line shaded off outwards. 



The root has a peculiar though very faint odour, and is of rather 

 mawkish and insipid t^te, and very slimy when chewed. 



Microscopic Structure — The greater part of the bark consists of 

 liber, abounding in long soft fibres, to which the toughness of the 

 cortical tissue is due. They are branched and form bundles, each con- 



^ Pertz, Monumenta Germaniee historica, Legum torn. i. (1835) ISl.— Ihischa from 

 the Greek l^itrKoi. 



