Children traditionally have eaten the green immature fruits of malva. The sepals need not be removed. People of many countries eat malva's young tender shoots and leaves as a potherb, salad green, or soup vegetable. Mallows are studied for use as forage, fodder, or silage.
Most animals apparently recover if kept calm.
Carolus Linnaeus published the malva species names parviflora, sylvestris, and rotundifolia in Species Plantarum in 1753. Somewhere in the vague history of malva nomenclature, pusilla lost favor, and rotundifolia was restored. Though the Weed Science of America 3 considers rotundifolia a synonym for neglecta, European specialists recognize both species. However, he points out that the name makes more etymological sense as meaning a plant not gathered for food. Whether the Latin word implies unjust abandonment, like its English equivalent might, I leave to linguistic scholars and to those who have eaten mallow.