35 ALTHAEA OFFICINALIS 



reniform, 1- celled, dark purple, flat after dehiscence. . Ovary 

 covered by tlie base of the combined petals and staminal tube, 

 roundish, flattened, with numerous cells, and a single ovule in 

 each, style cylindrical, tapering, passing through the staminal 

 tube, and dividing beyond it into numerous slender filiform 

 branches with the stigmatic surfaces on the inside. Fruit 

 brownish-green, flattened- spherical, partially covered by the 

 closely inflexed persistent sepals, consisting of a radiating whorl 

 of numerous dry, laterally compressed, circular, indehiscent carpels 

 (cocci) attached to a central axis, smooth on the flat sides, hairy 

 on the back, separating from each other when ripe. Seed kidney- 

 shaped, smooth, brown; embryo curved, with thin cotyledons, 

 endosperm almost absent. 



Habitat. The marsh mallow grows in ditches and wet places 

 in the neighbourhood of the sea and tidal rivers throughout 

 Europe, with the exception of Scandinavia and North Russia ; 

 also in Asia Minor, Western Asia (reaching Kashmir), and 

 Algeria. In England it can be scarcely called common, but is to 

 be found in most of the southern counties in suitable situations. 

 Further north in this country it is considered to be introduced or 

 escaped from cultivation, as is also the case in Norway and in the 

 United States. It grows very readily in inland gardens, but 

 loses there a good deal of the characteristic grey velvet-like 

 covering and becomes greener. For medicinal use it is culti- 

 vated chiefly in Bavaria and Wurtemberg. 



Syme, E. Bot., ii, p. 163; Hook, f., Stud. PI., p. 71; Watson, 

 Comp. Cyb. Brit., p. 128; PL Brit. India, i, p. 319; Boissier, 

 PI. Orient., i, p. 428 ; Gren. & Godr., Fl. France, i, 494; Lindl., 

 Fl. Med., p. 143. 



Official Part and Name. ALTHJIA; the root (U. S. P.). Not 

 official in the British Pharmacopoeia, or the Pharmacopoeia of 

 India. 



Collection. Marsh mallow roots are usually collected in the 

 autumn from cultivated plants of two years old; they are then 

 scraped so as to remove the outer portions of the bark and the 



