I was inspired to write up about the Mallows this week as I have many seedlings of the Common Mallow below a large mother plant on my allotment and I noticed that my opposite neighbour also had some. When I spoke to her she was just about to dig some large specimen up and told me she had several all over her allotment too. So this lovely, innocent looking plant can be a little invasive!
The Malvaceae includes the easy recognisable, pink flowered Mallows as well as our Lime trees. This seems very unlikely as they do not resemble each other in the slightest and therefore they have often been separated into the Tiliaceae as for example in the Wild Flower Key by F. Rose. However according to Stace the molecular evidence shows that genus Tilia should be united in the Mallow family. As there are too many Mallows to write about I will cover the Limes in a next post!
Most information is again from various websites or books and floras for which are provided links throughout the text for some more information.
I use colour coding for easy reading! Blue background is general interesting info (although I hope you find it all interesting!!). Green is about all the uses except for medicinal uses or if there is a warning in which case I use a pink background. Pictures by Matt Summers, Mike Poulton and from Wikipedia. If the plant occurs in the Flora of Birmingham and the Black Country FBBC is added behind name in contents.
Contents:
Mallows in the Malvaceae
Sidalcea malviflora or Greek Mallow FBBC
- S. candida or Modest Mallow
Malva sylvestris or Common Mallow FBBC
M. neglecta or Dwarf Mallow FBBC
M. moschata or Musk Mallow FBBC
M. arborea or Tree-mallow FBBC
Other species of Mallow occurring in the British Isles:
- M. alcea or Greater Musk-mallow FBBC
- M. multiflora or Smaller Tree-mallow
- M. nicaeensis or French Mallow
- M. parviflora or Least Mallow FBBC
- M. pusilla or Small Mallow FBBC
- M. setigera or Rough Mallow FBBC
- M. trimestris or Royal Mallow FBBC
- M. verticillata or Chinese Mallow FBBC
- M. × clementii (Malva olbia × thuringiaca) or Garden Tree-mallow FBBC
Althaea officinalis or Marshmallow
Alcea rosea or Hollyhock FBBC