WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

This widespread desert mallow reaches 1–6 feet tall, often without branching, with numerous orange-red, hibiscus-like flowers along the upper stalk. Note the leaves have a downy covering of yellow to gray, star-shaped hairs, and the flowers grow in clusters in the leaf axils along the stems.

FLOWERS: June–October. Clusters with 3–4 flowers and a leaf grow at nodes separated along the stems. Cup-shaped flowers, 1-inch diameter (2.5 cm) with 5 orange to reddish, or rarely pink or white petals, and a column of stamens; anthers yellow. This species has tiny, hair-like bractlets below the flower base (calyx).

LEAVES: Alternate. Blade gray-green, 1/2–2 1/2 inches long (1.2–6.5 cm), oval to triangular shaped or with 3 shallow to deep lobes; tip rounded, base triangular, surfaces covered with downy yellow to gray, star-shaped hairs, margins entire to irregular and wavy.

HABITAT: Sandy, gravelly, clay-loam soils, roadsides; prairies, desert scrub, pinyon-juniper, ponderosa woodlands.

ELEVATION: 4,000–7,000 feet.

RANGE: AZ, NM, TX.

SIMILAR SPECIES: 15 species in New Mexico, many similar and difficult to distinguish in the field. Small-leaf Globemallow, S. parvifolia, in nw NM, has rounded to triangular leaves often with shallow lobes and white (not yellowish) hairs, and flowers crowded in separated whorls along the stem.

NM COUNTIES: Widespread (except ne plains counties) in low- to mid-elevation arid habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Chaves, Cibola, Dona Ana, Eddy, Grant, Hidalgo, Lincoln, Los Alamos, Luna, McKinley, Otero, Roosevelt, Rio Arriba, San Juan, San Miguel, Santa Fe, Sandoval, Sierra, Sierra, Socorro, Taos, Torrance, Valencia.