The Description.

            1. The Wild Mallow hath broad leaves somewhat round and cornered, nicked about the edges, smooth, and green of colour: among which rise up many slender tough stalks, clad with the like leaves, but smaller. The flowers grow upon little footstalks of a reddish colour mixed with purple streaks, consisting of five leaves, fashioned like a bell: after which cometh up a knop or round button, like unto a flat cake, compact of many small seeds. The root is white, tough, and full of a slimy juice, as is all the rest of the plant.

            2. The Dwarf Wild Mallow creepeth upon the ground: the stalks are slender and weak; yet tough and flexible. The leaves be rounder, and more hoary than the other. The flowers are small and of a white colour.

            3. The crisp or curled Mallow, called of the vulgar sort French Mallows, hath many small upright stalks, growing to the height of a cubit; and sometimes higher; whereon do grow broad leaves somewhat round and smooth, of a light green colour, plaited or curled about the brims like a ruff. The flowers be small and white. The root perisheth when it hath perfected his seed.

            4. The Vervain Mallow hath many straight stalks, whereon do grow divers leaves deeply cut and jagged even to the middle rib, not unlike to the leaves of Vervain, whereof it took his name: among which come forth fair and pleasant flowers like unto those of the common Mallow in form, but of a more bright red colour, mixed with stripes of purple, which setteth forth the beauty. The root is thick, and continueth many years. This is sometimes though more rarely found with white flowers.

Fig. 1357. Spanish Mallow (5)

            5. This annual Mallow, called by Clusius, Malva trimestris, is very like our common Mallow, sending up slender branched stalks some three foot high; the bottom leaves are round, those on the stalks more sharp pointed, green above, and whiter underneath; the flowers consist of five leaves of a light carnation colour, the seed is like that of the ordinary Mallow, but smaller; and such also is the root, which perishes every year as soon as the seed is ripe: it is sown in some gardens, and grows wild in Spain.

The Place.

            The two first Mallows grow in untoiled places among pot-herbs, by highways, and the borders of fields.

            The French Mallow is an excellent pot-herb, for the which cause it is sown in gardens, and is not to be found wild that I know of.

            The Vervain Mallow groweth not everywhere: it grows on the ditch sides on the left hand of the place of execution by London, called Tyburn: also in a field near unto a village fourteen miles from London called Bushey, on the back-side of a gentleman's house named Mr Robert Wylbraham: likewise amongst the bushes and hedges as you go from London to a bathing place called the Old Ford; and in the bushes as you go to Hackney a village by London, in the closes next the town, and in divers other places, as at Bassingburne in Hertfordshire, three miles from Royston.

            Goodyer found the Vervain Mallow with white flowers growing plentifully in a close near Mapledurham in Hampshire, called Aldercrofts.

The Time.

            These wild Mallows do flower from June till summer be well spent: in the meantime their seed also waxeth ripe.

The Names.

            The wild Mallow is called in Latin Malva sylvestris: of some, Osiriaca: in High Dutch, Papvelin: in Low Dutch, Maluwe, and Keeskens Cruyt: in English, Mallow.

            The Vervain Mallow is called of Dioscorides, Alcea: of some, Herba Hungarica, and Herba Simeonis, or Simon's Mallow: in English, Vervain Mallow, and Jagged Mallow.

            The name of this herb Malva seemeth to come from the Hebrews, who call it in their tongue Malluach, of the saltness, because the Mallow groweth in saltish and old ruinous places, as in dung-hills and such like, which in most abundant manner yieldeth forth saltpetre and such like matter: for Melach signifieth salt, as the learned know. I am persuaded that the Latin word Malua or Malva cometh from the Chaldee name Mallucha, the gutturall letter ch, being left out for good sound's sake: so that it were better in this word Malua to read u as a vowel, than as a consonant: which words are uttered by the learned Doctor Rabbi David Kimhi, and seem to carry a great show of truth: in English it is called Mallow; which name cometh as near as may be to the Hebrew word.

The Temperature.

            The wild Mallows have a certain moderate and middle heat, and moistness withal: the juice thereof is slimy, clammy, or gluing, the which are to be preferred before the garden Mallow or Hollyhock, as Diphilus Siphinus in Athenæus doth rightly think; who plainly showeth, that the wild Mallow is better than that of the garden: although some do prefer the Hollyhock, whereunto we may not consent, neither yet yield unto Galen, who is partly of that mind, yet standeth he doubtful: for the wild Mallow without controversy is fitter to be eaten, and more pleasant than those of the garden, except the French Mallow, which is generally holden the wholesomest, and amongst the pot-herbs not the least commended by Hesiod: of whose opinion was Horace, writing in his second Ode of his Epodon,

-- & gravi
Maluæ salubres corpori.
["and Mallows salubrious for a sickly body"
Horace, Epodes, 2.57]

The Mallow (saith Galen) doth nourish moderately, engendereth gross blood, keepeth the body soluble, and looseth the belly that is bound. It easily descendeth, not only because it is moist, but also by reason it is slimy.

The Virtues.

            A. The leaves of Mallows are good against the stinging of scorpions, sees, wasps, and such like: and if a man be first anointed with the leaves stamped with a little oil, he shall not be stung at all, Dioscorides saith.

            B. The decoction of Mallows with their roots drunken are good against all venom and poison, if it be incontinently taken after the poison, so that it be vomited up again.

            C. The leaves of Mallows boiled till they be soft and applied, do mollify tumors and hard swellings of the mother, if they do withal sit over the fume thereof, and bathe themselves therewith.

            D. The decoction used in clysters is good against the roughness and fretting of the guts, bladder, and fundament.

            E. The roots of the Vervain Mallow do heal the bloody flux and inward burstings, being drunk with wine and water, as Dioscorides and Paulus Ægineta testify.