OUR Flores de Mayo celebration continues with our third flower for May: Althea rosea. This is commonly known as the “rose mallow” or the hollyhock.
The first common name though, makes me and the family laugh upon learning it because it is an interesting combination of the words “rose” and “marshmallow.” Incidentally, we like both! In fact, Yi Zhang and colleagues referred to it in their Fitoterapia article in April 2015 as “marshmallow.” This flower is often grown not just in gardens and parks but also in riverbanks and even salt marshes, which explains the name “marshmallow.”
The most apt name however, is “Althea Rose,” which I will use in this article.
In Uyghur ethnic medicine, the Althea Rose is commonly used to control inflammation. Uyghurs are Asians with roots from the Turkic people that used to found an empire in the sixth century Christian Era, which stretched from today’s Mongolia and northern China to the Black Sea, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
The white flower of Althea Rose looks very closely with the Carnation flower. Although the plant is native to China, it can be found in different regions of Asia (Middle East and Central Asia) and Europe (Southern Europe and the Mediterranean). However, I suspect that the flower can also be found in the Philippines.
It must be noted that inflammation is a basic disease process of the tissue. As such, it is associated with infections (bacterial or viral) and cancer.
In their report to the Frontiers in Plant Science (Jan. 9, 2019 issue), Fang Ma, Qingxin Cui and Gang Bai confirmed the presence of four types of anti-inflammatory agents called the NF-kB (nuclear factor-kB) inhibitors. The NF-kB increases significantly in tissue inflammation, which often leads to tissue damage. These inhibitors are phenolic acid, hydroxycinnamic acid, flavonoid and dihydroflavone. The presence of these inhibitors confirmed the anti-inflammatory activity of the Althea Rose flower oil.
Althea Rose for our Blessed Mother!