Spring Song.—N. Hopper.
Parkinson praises mallows both for beauty and virtue. “The double ones, which for their Bravery are entertained everywhere into every Countrywoman’s garden. The Venice Mallow is called Good-night-at-noone, though the flowers close so quickly that you shall hardly see a flower blowne up in the day-time after 9 A.M.” Some medical advice follows, in which “All sorts of Mallowes” are praised. “Those that are of most use are most common. The rest are but taken upon credit.” The last remark comes quite casually, and apparently those that were “but taken upon credit,” would be comprehended in the “all sorts” and administered without hesitation. French Mallows (Malva crispa) is most highly recommended as an excellent pot-herb! indeed all wild mallows may be used in that capacity, and the Romans are said to have considered them a delicacy.
Marsh Mallow (Althæa officinalis) has very soothing qualities, and was, and is, much used by country people for inflammation outwardly and inwardly. It contains a great deal of mucilage, in the root particularly. Timbs says: “Dr Sir John Floyer mentions a posset (hot milk curdled by some infusion) in which althœa roots are boiled”; and it must have been a “comforting” one. In France, the young tops and leaves are used in spring salads. “Many of the poorer inhabitants of Syria, especially the Fellahs, the Greeks, and the Armenians, subsist for weeks on herbs, of which the Marsh Mallow is one of the most common. When boiled first, and then fried with onions and butter, they are said to form a palatable dish, and in times of scarcity, consequent upon the failure of the crops, all classes may be seen striving with eagerness to obtain the much desired plant, which fortunately grows in great abundance.”[44] In Job xxx. 3, 4 we read: “For want and famine they were solitary, fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste. Who cut up mallows by the bushes.” Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible,” however, casts doubt on this mallow being a mallow at all, and though admitting that it would be quite possible, decides that the evidence points most clearly to Atriplex Halimus.
Gerarde says the Tree Mallow “approacheth nearer the substance and nature of wood than any of the others; wherewith the people of Olbia and Narbone in France doe make hedges, to sever or divide their gardens and vineyards which continueth long;” and these hedges must have been a beautiful sight when in flower.
The Hollyhock, of course, belongs to this tribe, and was once apparently eaten as a pot-herb, and found to be an inferior one. It has been put to other uses, for Hogg says that the stalks contain a fibre, “from which a good strong cloth has been manufactured, and in the year 1821 about 280 acres of land near Flint in Wales were planted with the Common Holyhock, with the view of converting the fibre to the same uses as hemp or flax.” It was also discovered in the process of manufacture, that the plant “yields a blue dye, equal in beauty and permanence to that of the best indigo.” This experiment however successful in results, cannot have been justified from a commercial point of view, and was not often repeated, and there is now no trace of its having been ever tried.
In other languages, the Hollyhock has very pretty names; “in low Dutch, it was called Winter Rosen, and in French, Rose d’outremer.”
[44] Hogg.
Marigold (Calendula Officinalis).
Hark! hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings
And Phœbus ’gins to rise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chalic’d flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes.
Cymbeline, ii. 3.