1302 Malva sylvestris L.

This species s. lat. was originally restricted to Europe, N. Africa and W. Asia. The species s. str. (subsp. sylvestris) is replaced E of the braken line by other sylvestris taxa. This species has been widely cultivated for a long time and is now spread over large parts of the world, for instance S. Africa, S. and SE. Asia, Australia, New Zealand and N. and S. America. Nowadays it belongs to the circumpolar plants (Hultén, Circumpol. Il, p. 397 and map 284). Cf. also Meusel et al. 1978, map p. 282.