13S 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
MALLOW. 
BENEFICENCE. 
This plant was used by the Greeks and Ro¬ 
mans as an article of diet, as it is still by the 
people of Egypt and China. From this ejacu¬ 
lation of Job—“ Who cut up Mallows by the 
bushes and juniper-roots for their meat ?” we 
learn that it afforded food in the earliest times 
to those wandering tribes which chose rather to 
pitch their tents in the wilderness and to depend 
on the spontaneous gifts of bountiful Nature 
than to dwell in permanent habitations and to 
labour for their support. 
The common Mallow, the friend of the poor 
man, grows naturally beside the brook that 
quenches his thirst, and around the hut in 
which he dwells; and it borders the road-sides 
in most parts of Europe. Though it continues 
to blossom from the month of May to the end 
of October, yet its flowers never tire the eye, 
their petals being of a delicate, reddish purple, 
