MELOCHIA, JEW'S MALLOW, in botany: A genus of the pentandria order, belonging to the monodelphia class of plants; and in the natural method ranking under the 37th order, Columnifera. The capsule is quinquelocular and monospermous. There are several species; but the only remarkable one is the olitorius, or common Jew's-mallow, which is a native of the warm parts of Asia and America.—It is an annual plant, which rises about two feet high, dividing into several branches, garnished with leaves of different sizes and forms: some are spear-shaped, others are oval, and some almost heart-shaped: they are of a deep green, and slightly indented on their edges, having near their base two bristly reflexed segments. They have very long slender footstalks, especially those which grow on the lower part of the branches. The flowers sit close on the opposite side of the branches to the leaves, coming out singly; they are composed of five small yellow petals, and a great number of stamina surrounding the oblong germ, which is situated in the centre of the flower, and afterwards turns to a rough swelling capsule two inches long, ending in a point, and
and having four cells filled with angular greenish seeds. This species is cultivated about the city of Aleppo in Syria, and in the East Indies, as a pot-herb; the Jews boiling the leaves, and eating them with their meat. It is supposed by Rauwolf to be the olus Judaicum of Avicenna, and the cerchlorum of Pliny.