[191] Hist. Plant. l. vii. c. 8. p. 142. Heinsii. 240. Schneider.
Horace in two passages signifies his partiality to mallows, calling them “leves,” light to digest.
Let olives be my food, endive, and mallows light.
Od. l. i. 31. v. 16.
Mallows, salubrious to a frame o’er-filled.
Epod. 2. 57.
Martial recommends this vegetable on account of its laxative effect:
Utere lactucis, et mollibus utere malvis. (iii. 47.)
Exoneratarus ventrem mihi villica malvas
Attulit, et varias, quas habet hortus, opes. (x. 48.)
Diphilus of Siphnos (as quoted by Athenæus, l. ii. p. 58. E. Casaub.), after enumerating the medical virtues of the Common Mallow, says, that “the wild was better than the cultivated kind.”