With bushy stems reaching 1–3 feet tall, this western NM globemallow can cover broad expanses of drylands with dense spike-like clusters of bright orange-red flowers. Note the leaves are broadly oval to heart-shaped, often with 3–5 bulging lobes, and covered with tiny white hairs, and the numerous flower clusters are distinctly separated along the stem.

FLOWER: May–September (with spring, fall rains). Numerous flowers bloom at the same time along the stem with distinct spaces between the nodes of flower clusters; usually several flowers bloom simultaneously at each node; petals 5, orange-red, each 5/16–3/4 inch long (8–18 mm); the pronounced stamen column is topped with a cluster of yellow anthers. Fruit is a dried, half-rounded (hemispherical) capsule with 9–12 chambers. This species has 3 tiny, hair-like bractlets at the base of the buds, but they often fall off by blooming.

LEAVES: Alternate on long stalks (petioles). Blades gray-green, rounded to heart-shaped, 1/2–2 1/4 inches long and wide (15–55 mm), often with 3–5 shallow, rounded lobes; surfaces covered with white (not yellowish), star-shaped hairs, and prominently 5-veined on the underside; margins wavy-edged with rounded teeth.

HABITAT: Dry sandy, gravelly soils of grasslands, mesas, foothills, canyon bottoms, washes, slopes, roadsides, disturbed areas; desert grasslands and scrub, sage shublands, pinyon-juniper woodlands, ponderosa forests.

ELEVATION: 5,500–7,750 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CA, CO, NV, NM, UT.

SIMILAR SPECIES: The widespread Gray Globemallow S. incana, has oval to triangular leaves with a dense covering of fine, downy yellow to gray, star-shaped hairs, and stems that reach 1–6 feet tall, and don’t form leafy clumps.

NM COUNTIES: Northwest 1/4 of NM in med-elevation, dry habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Cibola, Dona Ana, Grant, Los Alamos, McKinley, Rio Arriba, San Juan, Sandoval, Socorro, Valencia.