Malva parviflora is an annual or perennial herb that is native to Northern Africa, Southern Europe, and Western and Central Asia and is widely naturalized elsewhere. Common names include cheeseweed, cheeseweed mallow, Egyptian mallow, least mallow, little mallow, mallow, marshmallow, small-flowered mallow, small-flowered marshmallow, and smallflower mallow. It is used in traditional medicine.
Description
M. parviflora has a decumbent or erect habit, growing up to 50–80 cm in height. The broad leaves have 5–7 shallow lobes and are 8–10 cm in diameter. The lobe edges are round-toothed, with varying hairiness. It has small white or pink flowers year-round at the base of leaf stalks; flowers have 4–10 mm long petals. The 2 mm seeds are reddish-brown and kidney-shaped.
Newly sprouted plants have hairless, heart-shaped cotyledons with long stalks. These cotyledons are 3–12 mm long and 3–8 mm wide. Stalks usually do have hairs. The first leaf is rounder and larger than the others. True leaves are round and weakly lobed with wavy, shallow-toothed edges and a red spot at the leaf base. The plant rapidly grows a deep taproot.
M. parviflora has a diploid chromosome count of 42.
Taxonomy
Malva parviflora was described by Carl Linnaeus and published in Demonstrationes Plantarum in Horto Upsaliensi MDCCLIII on October 3, 1753.
The genus name Malva is from the Latin word malva 'mallow'. Mallow was described by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia (20, LXXXIV). The species name parviflora means 'small-flowered' and is a compound of the Latin words parvus 'small' and flores 'flowers'.
Two subspecies are accepted.
Malva parviflora var. parviflora – Mediterranean basin, Sahara, Macaronesia, Arabian Peninsula, and Western Asia to the Caucasus and Pakistan
Malva parviflora var. velutina (J.A.Schmidt) A.Chev. – Cape Verde Islands (Santo Antão Island)
