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COMMON MALLOW
Malva sylvestris
Family MALVACEAE
A plant of considerable beauty which may be found in field, copse or roadside.
It is a biennial or perennial with an erect, hairy stem, growing to a height of three or four feet. The leaves, on long stalks, are kidney-shaped, the margins broken up into five lobes which have toothed edges.
The large, pale purple flowers, with darker lines converging to the centre, are produced from the axils of the leaves, and are about one and a half inches in diameter. The five petals are heart-shaped. In newly-opened Rowers it will be noticed that the anthers ripen and shed their pollen before the ten styles are mature. When, later, the stigmatic upper surfaces of these become fit for pollination, they hold themselves above the drooping stamens, so that self-fertilization is impossible.
The fruits consist of a number of one-seeded carpels, arranged in a ring.
Flowering from June to September.
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At the axil of each leaf-stalk there is a pair of very large stipules malva sylvestris, of the arrowhead type, and broader than the leaflets. From six to ten small, bright yellow flowers are borne in racemes, supported by a stalk, an inch or more in sylvestris malva length. The calyx is tubular, with five long awl-shaped points, and the large erect petal, called the standard, is marked with several thin purple streaks. The style is flattened malva sylvestris and its inner surface bearded. It may be found in flower from June to September.
In chalky districts especially, this climbing sylvestris malva shrub will be met with at every turn, scrambling over the hedges, clinging persistently to every branch or shoot it touches. In autumn, when the feathery awns are lengthening on malva sylvestris its seed-vessels, it is aptly called "Old Man's Beard."
It is a perennial plant, and is found only to the south of Denbigh and Stafford. The stem is malva sylvestris tough, and it climbs by means of its leafstalks which curl round any likely support and become hard as wire. The leaves are opposite and compound, the leaflets usually five malva sylvestris. The slightly fragrant flowers have no corolla, but the four thick, downy sepais are coloured greenish-white to serve instead.
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