Erect to sprawling stems reach 12–16 inches tall with elongated clusters of red-orange, cup-shaped flowers. Note the anthers on the stamen column are dark red. The leaf bade has a rounded outline and is divided into slender, finger-like segments. Star-shaped hairs lightly cover the foliage and flowers (use lens).

FLOWER: April–September. Red-orange, in elongated clusters with 1–3 flowers per node, totaling 10-20 flowers; 5 petals, each 5/16–9/16-inch long (8–14 mm); stamen column showy with purple anthers. Note the tiny, hair-like bractlets beneath each flower.  Fruits are cylindric, cheese-wheel shaped pods that dry and split into 9–13 chambers with one seed each.

LEAVES: Alternate. Blades rounded in outline, 5/8–1 5/8 inches long (1.5–4 cm) and about as wide, and palmately divided to the base into 3–5 finger-like, lance-shaped segments, which may have 1–2 small lobes.

HABITAT: Dry sandy, gravelly, clay, limestone, volcanic soils; slopes, canyons, meadows, roadsides; desert scrub, grasslands, pinyon-juniper, ponderosa forests.

ELEVATION: 4,000–7,200 feet.

RANGE: AZ, NM, TX, UT.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Several globemallow species in NM have palmately lobed leaves. Scarlet Globemallow, S. coccinea, has palmate leaves with each segment divided into several lobes. Gooseberry Globemallow, S. grossulariifolia, has tiny, hair-like bractlets beneath each flower and leaves elongated (not rounded in outline) with finger-like segments divided into lobes.

NM COUNTIES: Western half of NM in low- to mid-elevation, dry habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Chaves, Cibola, Colfax, Dona Ana, Eddy, Grant, Hidalgo, Los Alamos, Luna, McKinley, Otero, San Juan, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Sierra, Socorro, Torrance, Valencia.