134 The Mallow. 



of the funeral flowers of the ancients, it being customary to plant 

 it around the graves and tombs of departed friends. It has been 

 made, in floral language, the emblem of a mild and sweet dis- 

 position. 



It is the type of the natural order Malvaceae, which are herbs 

 with arboreous, shrubby, or herbaceous stems ; rough fibred 

 bark ; the leaves with stipules alternate, mostly simple, occasion- 

 ally digitate ; the flowers axillary or terminal, very rarely with 

 imperfectly separated organs. It is in the class Monadelphia, 

 order Polyandria. Its generic characters are: Calyx double, 

 outer three-leaved ; capsules many ; united in a depressed whorl ; 

 one-celled ; one-seeded. 



Pliny tells of two kinds of Mallows that were cultivated in the 

 gardens of the Romans, which he says were distinguished from 

 the wild Mallow by the size of the leaves. He also tells us that 

 the leaves of the marsh Mallow were used as a counter poison 

 against the sting or bite of all venomous reptiles from the wasp 

 to the serpent ; and that the juice of Mallows given warm was a 

 celebrated medicine for such as were gone melancholy or were 

 deranged in mind. Mallows, he also tells us, were sown in the 

 fields for the purpose of enriching the grounds. 



The Common Mallow — Malva Sylvestris — is a native of 

 Europe ; is the officinal article of our pharmacopoeia. Although 

 its blossoms so very frequently meet the eye, from its flowers 

 succeeding each other from the month of May to the end of 

 October, yet they never tire the sight, their petals being of a 

 delicate reddish purple, sometimes varying to a white, or inclin- 

 ing to a bluish cast, with three or four darker streaks running 

 from the base. It is fortunate for the husbandman that nature 

 should allot this plant for the banks and borders of fields, rather 

 than to scatter over meadows, since its spreading branches would 

 in a great measure destroy the turf ; and as cattle in general re- 

 fuse to eat this plant, it would soon overrun and smother vegeta- 

 tion. 



The Malva Rotundifolia-— Dwarf Mallow — has been pro- 

 bably introduced, though it now grows wild. It is common in 

 cultivated grounds and about houses and sidewalks, and, like the 

 former species, continues in flower all summer. Its leaves are 

 round, somewhat kidney-shaped, with imperfect lobes supported 

 on long horny footstalks ; the stipules, or appendages at their 



