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Sphaeralcea laxa Wooton & Standl.  

No occurrences found

Family: Malvaceae
caliche globemallow
Sphaeralcea laxa image
Patrick Alexander
  • Field Guide
  • Resources
Wiggins 1964, Kearney and Peebles 1969, Felger 2000, McDougall 1973, Allred and Ivey 2012
Duration: Perennial Nativity: Native Lifeform: Forb/Herb General: Perennial herb, to 1 m tall, from a woody crown and stout taproot; stems erect; herbage densely stellate-tomentose. Leaves: Alternate along the stems, on slender petioles 5-30 mm long; blades ovate to deltoid, 1-5 cm long and nearly as wide, 3-lobed, with the lateral lobes about half the length of the middle lobe; leaf base base truncate (squared-off) to deeply cordate (heart-shaped) and the margins crentate to coarsely toothed; upper leaf surface green with stellate hairs mildly interlacing; lower surface paler. Flowers: Pink to red, in a lax, few-flowered panicle, on pedicels 2-5 mm long; each flower subtended by one or more filiform bacteoles, 3-5 mm long; sepals 5, fused together at the base, 5-8 mm long, stellate-tomentulose; petals 5, dark wine-red to pink, 10-18 mm long. Fruits: Schizocarps truncate-ovoid, 5-6 mm high and 5-9 mm wide; splitting into several carpels, these copiously hairy, finely but obviously reticulate at the base, and containing 1-3 seeds. Ecology: Found in caliche soils, disturbed areas, rocky slopes, and washes in the open, from 2,000-6,000 ft (610-1829 m); flowers March-November. Distribution: AZ, sw NM, s TX; south to n MEX. Notes: A variable species, with leaves ranging from thin, bright-green, and shallowly lobed, to thick, whitish-tomentose, and deeply dissected; the plant is usually infused with some amount of purple dye, often giving foliage a slight purple hue; the open, relatively few-flowered inflorescence with red to pink flowers and dark-purple anthers are especially distinctive. Sphaeralcea spp. can be tricky to tell apart, and the key characteristics are often the mature fruits, which are small and cheese-wheel shaped, and split apart like the segments of an orange. It is best to make a quality collection with mature fruits for identification. Ethnobotany: Unknown, but others in the genus have many uses. Etymology: Sphaeralcea is from the Greek sphaira, a globe, and alcea, the hollyhock genus (a type of mallow); laxa means growing loosely. Synonyms: Sphaeralcea ribifolia Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015, AHazelton 2017
Sphaeralcea laxa
Open Interactive Map
Sphaeralcea laxa image
Patrick Alexander
Sphaeralcea laxa image
Patrick Alexander
Sphaeralcea laxa image
Fred Fisher
Sphaeralcea laxa image
Sphaeralcea laxa image
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