MALVA SYLVESTRIS

COMMON MALLOWS, HIGH MALLOWS

Description:  Natural Order, Malvaceae.  This plant has a perennial root, and a juicy, annual stem two to three feet high; sometimes cultivated in gardens, but common by road-sides in the East.  Leaves large, broadly heart-shaped, soft, plaited, and slightly seven-lobed.   Flowers resembling the well-known holly-hock, but more tubular, an inch in diameter, shiny, light purple, veined, on hairy peduncles in the axils of the leaves.

MALVA ROTUNDIFOLIA, the low or cheese mallows, is an insignificant and sometimes troublesome plant, growing near dwellings, procumbent, with nearly round and wavy-edged, leaves an inch in diameter; beneath which are concealed the small, white, short-pedunculate flowers.

Properties and Uses: These plants are very demulcent, with slight nervine tonic properties.   An infusion may be used freely in irritation of the bowels, kidneys and bladder, and in dysentery and acute nephritic complaints.  They make a desirable soothing remedy, and may be used to advantage with agrimony. They are also of much service as an outward application to inflamed surfaces.