MALLOW, botanically Malva, the typical genus of the family Malvaceae, embracing about 3o species of annual and perennial herbaceous plants, widely distributed throughout the northern hemisphere. The mallows possess the reniform one-celled anthers which specially characterize the Malvaceae (q.v.). The petals also are united by their base to the tube formed by the coalesced filaments of the stamens. The special characters which separate the genus Malva from others most nearly allied to it are the involucre, consisting of a row of three separate bracts attached to the lower part of the true calyx, and the numerous single seeded carpels disposed in a circle around a central axis, from which they become detached when ripe. The flowers are mostly white or pinkish, never yellow, the leaves radiate-veined, and more or less lobed or cut. Three species are natives of Britain. The musk mallow (Malva moschata) is a perennial herb with five partite, deeply-cut leaves, and large rose-coloured flowers clus tered together at the ends of the branched stems, and is found growing along hedges and borders of fields, blossoming in July and August. It owes its name to a slight musky odour diffused by the plant in warm dry weather when it is kept in a confined situation. The round-leaved dwarf mallow (Malva rotundifolia) is a creep ing perennial, growing in waste sandy places, with roundish ser rate leaves and small pinkish-white flowers produced in the axils of the leaves from June to September. It is common throughout
Europe and the north of Africa, extending to western and north ern Asia. The common mallow (Malva sylvestris), the mauve of the French, is an erect biennial or perennial plant with long stalked roundish-angular serrate leaves, and conspicuously axillary reddish-purple flowers, blossoming from May to September. Like most plants of the order it abounds in mucilage, and hence forms a favourite domestic remedy for colds and sore throats. The aniline dye called mauve derives its name from its resemblance to the colour of this plant. Besides the foregoing three other species have become naturalized in vari ous parts of North America.
The marsh mallow (Althaea officinalis), the guirnauve of the French, belongs to another genus having an involucre of numerous bracts. Althaea rosea is the holly hock (q.v.).
The mallow of Scripture, Job xxx. 4, has been sometimes identified with Jew's mallow (Corchorus olitorius), a mem ber of the closely allied or der Tiliaceae, but more plausibly with Atriplex Halirnus, or sea orache.