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Mysterious purple-flowered weed (on coastal path)

Badly_MaintainedBadly_Maintained Posts: 114
in Plants
Hello all,

Below are a couple of photos of a mysterious plant growing on a coastal path (with a yellow pencil in the photos to provide scale).  Local council workers treat it as a weed.  It seems to grow up to 5-6 feet tall if left alone, and it seems to die back completely in the Winter months.  I didn't notice any particular fragrance from the flowers.  Could anyone identify it please?  Many thanks.

"If you have a garden in your library, we will want for nothing" Marcus Tullius Cicero (in a letter to Marcus Terentius Varro, 46 B.C.)

Posts

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    edited June 2022
    One of our native Mallows ... at that height probably Lavatera arborea aka Tree Mallow. 



    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576
    Something in the mallow family. Maybe common mallow, Malva sylvestris.
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    Why is it mysterious?
  • Badly_MaintainedBadly_Maintained Posts: 114
    Dovefromabove said:
    One of our native Mallows ... at that height probably Lavatera arborea aka Tree Mallow. 



    Thank-you :-)
    "If you have a garden in your library, we will want for nothing" Marcus Tullius Cicero (in a letter to Marcus Terentius Varro, 46 B.C.)
  • Badly_MaintainedBadly_Maintained Posts: 114
    Fire said:
    Why is it mysterious?
    I've never seen a mallow before, so it was mysterious to me at least :-)
    "If you have a garden in your library, we will want for nothing" Marcus Tullius Cicero (in a letter to Marcus Terentius Varro, 46 B.C.)
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    it's a fairly common wildflower and very useful for pollinators i the ones in my wild bits are anything to go by.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 15,039
    edited June 2022
    I grow this one as an annual.



    Malva Zebrina.
    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
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