Mallow

1840, Robert Browning, Sordello, Book IV, in Sordello; Strafford; Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1863, p. 112, The thoroughfares were overrun with weed — Docks, quitchgrass, loathly mallows no man plants.

Gonzalo. Had I plantation of this isle, my lord,— Antonio. He’ld sow’t with nettle-seed. Sebastian. Or docks, or mallows.

For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste. Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat.

Not Heathpout, or the rarer Bird, / Which Phasis, or Ionia yields, / More pleasing Morsels would afford / Than the fat Olives of my Fields; / Than Shards or Mallows for the Pot, / That keep the loosen’d Body sound, / Or than the Lamb that falls by Lot, / To the just Guardian of my Ground.

The Time Traveller paused, put his hand into his pocket, and silently placed two withered flowers, not unlike very large white mallows, upon the little table. Then he resumed his narrative.

'Twas early June, the new grass was flourishing everywheres, the posies in the yard—peonies and such—in full bloom, the sun was shining, and the water of the bay was blue, with light green streaks where the shoal showed.

The root of the mallow in goat's milk excites the sexual urge, according to Pliny the Elder, the Roman encyclopedist of the first century A.D.

Hallo Hallo, brain of tallow, / Guts are gone, noggin’s hollow. / Seeking sweets and marshing mallows, / Watch your back, and your candy sack.