A perennial herb occurring as a naturalised garden escape on woodland edges, hedgerows, roadsides and chalk pits. Casual populations also occur, especially on rubbish tips. Lowland.
M. alcea has been grown in British gardens since at least 1597. It was recorded from the wild by 1905, but may have been collected in Cambridgeshire in 1828; intermediates between this species and M. moschata occur. It may be increasing.
Native of temperate Europe.
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