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Sphaeralcea
coccinea
(Globe Mallow) Malvaceae (Mallow Family) Semi-desert, foothills. Disturbed areas,
woodlands, openings.
Spring, summer. Sphaeralcea
coccinea is a very common and variable plant of the low
foothills and semi-desert regions. It loves sandy, dry, open ground and often
forms large patches. Leaves are cut in many divisions and appear a silver
green because the green leaf is covered with fine, white hairs. Plants range from four inches to twenty inches tall with
the larger plants looking, from a distance, very much like Sphaeralcea
parvifolia. "Coccin" is Latin for "scarlet".
Thomas Nuttall, famed 18th century botanist and Professor of Botany at Harvard, collected this species "From the River Platte to the Rocky Mountains" in 1811 and named the plant Malva coccinea. Per Axel Rydberg renamed it Sphaeralcea coccinea in 1913. (Information and quotation from Intermountain Flora,) |
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Sphaeralcea
coccinea
(Globe Mallow) Malvaceae (Mallow Family) Semi-desert, foothills. Disturbed areas,
woodlands, openings.
Spring, summer. |
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Sphaeralcea
leptophylla
(Globe Mallow) Malvaceae (Mallow Family) Semi-desert. Sandy areas,
woodlands, openings.
Spring, summer. This lovely Mallow is easily distinguished from the other two shown on this page by its linear (long, narrow) leaves. It enjoys loose, sandy soils in all the Four Corners states and grows from eight to twenty-five inches tall with many flowers covering many stems. Stems and leaves have a gray-green cast. Notice a number of straw-colored stems from last year's growth. Charles Wright first collected this species in 1851 and Asa Gray named it Malvastrum leptophyllum. It was renamed Sphaeralcea leptophylla in 1913 by Per Axel Rydberg. The Greek "lepto" + "phyllum" means "fine-leaved". |
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Sphaeralcea
leptophylla
(Globe Mallow) Malvaceae (Mallow Family) Semi-desert. Sandy areas,
woodlands, openings.
Spring, summer. |
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parvifolia
(Globe Mallow) Malvaceae (Mallow Family) Semi-desert, foothills. Woodlands, openings.
Spring, summer. Sphaeralcea parvifolia also loves the hot and dry and can put on massive displays of flowers in Canyon Country. In 2004, and even more so in 2005, hundreds of thousands of plants bloomed profusely for weeks in the Four Corners states. (Click to see S. parvifolia putting on a show along the Colorado River.) In contrast to S. coccinea, S. parvifolia has wavy-edged, broadly triangular, lobed leaves;
long flower stalks; and can grow, as shown in the picture at the left, to over three feet tall and four feet wide in almost a bushy structure. "Parvifolia" is Latin for "small leaved". |
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Sphaeralcea
parvifolia
(Globe Mallow) Malvaceae (Mallow Family) Semi-desert, foothills. Woodlands, openings.
Spring, summer. Symmetry of flowers is replaced by symmetry of seed pods. Aven Nelson named this species in 1904 from a specimen collected by Leslie Goodding (1880-1967) in Nevada in 1902. |
Range map © John Kartesz,
County Color Key
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Range map for Sphaeralcea coccinea
Range map for Sphaeralcea leptophylla
Range map for Sphaeralcea parvifolia |
Species present in state and native
Species present in state and exotic
Species not present in state
Species present and not rare
Species present and rare
Species extirpated (historic)
Species extinct
Species noxious
Species exotic and present
Eradicated
Questionable presence
