Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Malvales > Malvaceae > Malva > Malva moschata

Malva moschata (musk mallow)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Malva moschata (musk mallow or musk-mallow) is a species of Malva native to Europe and southwestern Asia, from Spain north to the British Isles and Poland, and east to southern Russia and Turkey. It is a herbaceous perennial plant growing to 80 cm tall, with hairy stems and foliage. The leaves are alternate, 2–8 cm long and 2–8 cm broad, palmately lobed with five to seven lobes; basal leaves on the lower stem are very shallowly lobed, those higher on the stems are deeply divided, with narrow, acuminate lobes. The flowers are produced in clusters in the leaf axils, each flower 3.2–5 cm diameter, with five bright pink petals with a truncated to notched apex; they have a distinctive musky odour. The fruit is a disc-shaped schizocarp 3–6 mm diameter, containing 10–16 seeds, the seeds individua
View Wikipedia Record: Malva moschata

Attributes

Edible [1]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [1]  Hermaphrodite
Hazards [1]  When grown on nitrogen rich soils (and particularly when these are used inorganically), the plant tends to concentrate high levels of nitrates in its leaves; The leaves are perfectly wholesome at all other times.
Lifespan [1]  Perennial
Pollinators [1]  Bees, Bats
Scent [1]  The crushed leaves have a musk-like smell;
Structure [3]  Herb
Usage [1]  Cream, yellow and green dyes can be obtained from the plant and the seed heads; A fibre obtained from the stems is used for cordage, textiles and paper making;
Height [1]  31 inches (0.8 m)
Width [1]  24 inches (0.6 m)
Light Preference [2]  Mostly Sunny
Soil Acidity [2]  Neutral
Soil Fertility [2]  Mostly Infertile
Soil Moisture [2]  Mostly Dry
View Plants For A Future Record : Malva moschata

Protected Areas

Ecosystems

Predators

Providers

Pollinated by 
Aplocnemus nigricornis[5]
Episyrphus balteatus (Marmelade Fly)[5]
Meromyza saltatrix (Wheat Stem Maggot Fly)[5]
Muscina prolapsa[5]
Sphaerophoria scripta[5]

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Lixus pulverulentus (Narrowed Lixus Weevil)[5]
Puccinia malvacearum (hollyhock rust)[7]
Ramularia keithii[5]

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
1Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
2ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
3Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
4Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
5Ecology of Commanster
6HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
7Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0