1 Spec. Plant. Willd. iii. 770. Cl. 16. Ord. 8. Monadelphia Polyandria. Nat. ord. Malvaceae. G. 1289. Cat. double; the exterior 6 or 9 cleft. Caps, numerous,

1-seeded. Sp. 1. A. officinalis. Common Marsh Mallow. Med. Pot. 3d edit.

552. t. 198. Eng. Bot. t. 147. Smith's Flora Britan. 3. 739. Officinal. ALTHAeae, Folia, et Radix, Lond.-Radix, Edin.-

Folia et Radix, Bub. The leaves and root of Marsh

Mallow.

Syn. Guimauve (F.), Eibisch wurzel (G.), Gemeene heemst (Belg.), Ibisk (Danish), Alte (Swed.), Slaz wielkilesny (Polish), Proswurujak (Russian), Altea, Malva visco (I.), Malvarisco (S.).

The marsh mallow is an indigenous plant, which grows, as its name imports, in marshy places, particularly salt marshes, and on the banks of rivers throughout Europe. It flowers in June and July, and ripens its seeds in September. The root is perennial and fusiform. The stems are annual, herbaceous, upright, rising from two to five feet in height, round, naked, and purplish below, but leafy, branching, and greenish above. The leaves are alternate and petiolate, longer than they are broad, slightly five-lobed, and unequally serrated: both surfaces are downy, and give a soft velvety feeling when rubbed between the fingers. From the axillae of the leaves the flowers spring in short thick panicles. Both the calyxes are persistent: the exterior has 7, 9, 10, or 12 very narrow unequal divisions: the interior is more regularly, but less deeply, cleft into five broader and sharper segments. The petals are five, cordate, coalescing at their bases, of a pale blush colour. The stamens are many, united at their bases into a tube, and support reniform anthers. The germen is orbicular, bearing a cylindrical style, divided into many stigmas, which rise above the anthers.

The capsules, generally about twenty in number, are of a rounded kidney shape, united laterally in a circle, so as to form a flattened wheel-shaped seed-vessel; and each contains a solitary, reniform, flattened, smooth, brown seed. The roots, which are also medicinally used, are dug up in autumn.

Dioscoridis. Named from Althea, the mother of Meleager.

Qualities.-The leaves of the marsh mallow are inodorous and mucilaginous when chewed; the roots are externally tough and of a yellowish colour, internally white and fibrous; and contain a very considerable portion of mucus, which is yielded to water by coction. It also contains asparagine.

Medical Use.-The preparations of this plant, which derive their virtues from its mucus, are useful demulcents in visceral inflammations and calculous complaints. The roots, well boiled, and bruised, are sometimes used as an emollient suppurative cataplasm; and a decoction of the leaves forms a useful fomentation in external abrasions, and in cutaneous eruptions accompanied with a sharp ichorous discharge.

Officinal preparations.-Decoctum Althaeae officinalis, E. Decoc-tum Althaeae, D. Syrupus Althaeae, L. E.