Common Mallow. Uncommon happiness.

Common mallow (Malva sylvestris) is one of those plants that are often looked upon as weeds. But growing them in our little balcony has been so satisfying. I didn’t know what I was planting in early June. Today they bloomed and I didn’t know the name. The iNaturalist app from NatGeo is a fantastic way to find out names of plants and flowers - just click a photo and search! That’s how I found out what had bloomed.

The Mallow's kidney-shaped or palmately-lobed leaves are notably creased, typically with dentate margins. In bloom, the Malvaceae family plants produce five large notched petals in each open flower. Common mallow has showy pink petals laced with darker-coloured strokes. In the centre of the flower lies a pollen-loaded column of fused stamens. Mallow is known to freely seed. The round seed pods, known as 'cheeses', soon follow flowering. These were once munched by children on their way to and from school. The pods are held on stalks, close to the flowering stem.