MONADELPHIA. POLYANDRIA. Althea. 80? 
Road from Litchfield to Stafford, a little beyond the fourth mile stone, 
plentifully. Mr. Saville. Den of Portend, near the Loch of Monteith. 
Mr. Brown. Near Exeter. Mr. Martyn. (A large bed of it on the 
shingles near the mouth of the Ystwith, Cardiganshire. Mrs. Bowyer 
Adderley. E.) 
Var. 3. (G. lucidum saxatile,foliis G. Robertiani. R. Syn. 358. E.) Whole 
plant shining. Leaves smaller and more deeply divided: joints nu¬ 
merous. 
Pet. 65. 6. 
Near Swarming, Dorsetshire. Sherard. Shore of Selsey Island. Dillenius. 
(A weed in Chelsea garden. Smith. E.) 
Herb Robert.* * * § (Irish: j RuhellRih. Welsh: Pig yr Aran troedrudd. E.) 
Walls, hedges, rubbish, and stony places. A. April—Aug.f 
POLYANDRIA. 
ALTH/E'A.J Calyx double, outer nine-cleft: Capsules nu- 
numerous, monospermous. 
A. officinalis. Leaves undivided, slightly five-lobed, soft and 
downy. 
Knipli. 6— Ludw. 1— E.Bot. 147— Woodw. 53— FI. Dan. 530— Blackw. 90— 
Park. 304. I—-Fuchs. 1 5—Trag. 371 —J.B. ii. 954— -Louie, i. 157. 1— 
Ger. 787— Matth. 925—Clus. ii. 24. 1 — Dod. 655. 1— Lob. Obs. 373. 1 , 
and Ic. i. 653. 1— Ger. Em.. 933. 1— II. Ox. v. 19. 12. 
Stem upright, a yard high or more, cottony, cylindrical, somewhat 
branched. Leaves egg-spear-shaped, woolly, very soft, velvety; the 
upper smaller, with generally three imperfect lobes, serrated, with mostly 
five ribs underneath; the lower larger, with seven ribs, serrated, or 
rather scolloped. Floivers rather large, from the bosom of the leaves, on 
fruit-stalks, in a kind of panicle. Flowers-scales many cleft, bristle¬ 
shaped. Petals nicked, flesh-coloured. Relh. Leaves on leaf-stalks, 
angular. Calyx , the outer with sometimes eleven or twelve segments. 
Petals fringed at the base. ( Pubescence stellate. E.) 
Marsh-mallow. W'ymote. (Althaea of Pharm. Lond. E.) Salt marshes 
und banks of rivers. Salt marshes, Norfolk and Suffolk. Mr. Wood¬ 
ward. Sea shore near Marazion and Penzance, Cornwall. Mr. Watt. 
(Brading, and Quor Abbey, Isle of Wight. Dr. Bostock. Near Ardbig- 
land on the Solway Firth. Dr. Burgess. Hook. Scot. E.) P. Aug.§ 
* (The proper name after that of a celebrated Curator of the Oxford Botanic garden. E.) 
j* (As a vulnerary and abstergent, beneficial in hemorrhages, this, and some other 
species, have been long in repute. In North Wales, particularly in the neighbourhood of 
Rhydar, this plant has acquired much celebrity as a remedy for nephritic or calculous 
complaints. A handful of the dried leaves may be infused as tea, and a teacup full taken 
occasionally. Mr. Watt. The leaves, while yet green, are subject to a pretty little parasite, 
Eothidea Robertiani ; “in scattered clusters, very minute, dot-like, hemispherical, black, 
opening at length at the apex.” Grev. Scot. Crypt. 146. E.) 
$ (From aXGeto, to heal; alluding to its sanative virtues. E.) 
§ The whole plant, particularly the root, abounds with mild mucilage. The root 
boiled is much used as an emollient cataplasm, and an infusion of it is very generally 
