Deep-striped pink-mauve flowers with notched petals, and flat round fruits nicknamed 'cheeses' that children used to nibble
Common mallow - Malva sylvestris.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Common mallow
Archaeophyte · flowers June to October · waste ground, verges, hedge banks
Malva sylvestris — Malvaceae
Common mallow is a handsome sprawling plant of roadsides and waste ground, with pinkish-purple, dark-striped flowers. Long thought native, it is now regarded as an ancient garden introduction, possibly grown by the Romans for food and medicine. The French word for it, mauve, gave English the name of a colour.
How to spot them
- ▸Five notched, pinkish-purple petals 2-3 cm across, each marked with darker purple veins
- ▸Rounded leaves with 5-7 shallow-to-deep lobes on long, hairy stalks
- ▸Fruits are flat, round discs of wedge-shaped nutlets, nicknamed 'cheeses'
- ▸Look-alikes: dwarf mallow has small pale flowers and sprawls; musk mallow (native) has paler pink flowers and deeply cut leaves with a musky smell
- ▸Straggly plant 45-90 cm, sometimes 150 cm, by roads and hedge banks
How to know it
The French name for this plant, mauve, lent English a colour
Common mallow - Wildlife Trusts.
Once thought native, botanists now regard it as an archaeophyte, possibly brought by the Romans; its leaves, flowers and seeds are edible
Common mallow.
Told from a paler-flowered, musk-scented native relative with deeply divided leaves
Common mallow (musk mallow, Malva moschata, is the look-alike).
The confection once made from the root of a salt-marsh relative, Althaea officinalis, is named after that kin
Common mallow is in the same family, Malvaceae, as marsh-mallow, hollyhock, hibiscus and cotton.
Sprawling roadside plant, up to 1.5 m, that flowers with a few blooms at a time from June until autumn
Common mallow.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Malvaceae, which also includes cotton, hollyhock, okra and cacao
- •BSBI: an archaeophyte, previously considered native but now seen as a deliberate garden introduction
- •Flowering June to October (Wildlife Trusts, BSBI)
- •The Wildlife Trusts note that the French word mauve is where we get the word for the colour
- •Leaves, flowers and seeds are edible; the Romans may have grown it for food and medicine
- •The flat, round fruits are called 'cheeses'
- •Only one or two flowers are open on a plant at any one time (BSBI)
- •Widespread in lowland England and Wales, commonest in the south and east
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Sources
- The Wildlife Trusts — Common mallow
- BSBI — Malva sylvestris L., Common Mallow