Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Subshrub

General: Herbaceous perennials, 20-100 cm tall, stems several, erect to ascending, herbage canescent with gray or whitish stellate hairs, plants arising from a thick, woody crown with large roots.

Leaves: Alternate, broadly ovate to orbicular, 15-50 cm long, unlobed or shallowly 3-lobed near the middle, the margins toothed, usually cordate at the bases, the blades rather thick, prominently veined beneath, petioles 1-3 cm long.

Flowers: Showy, grenadine, regular, perfect, petals 5, 8-18 mm long, emarginate, calyx of united sepals, 4-8 mm long at antithesis, stamens in one series and monadelphous around the styles, involucel of 3 bracts present but usually deciduous soon after anthesis, flowers borne in racemes or panicles.

Fruits: Fruits hemispherical, with 9- 12 carpels, these 2-5 mm long, 1-celled, differentiated into a dehiscent apical portion and an indehiscent basal portion, this finely and faintly reticulate and about 1 quarter of the total length. Seeds usually 2 in each car

Ecology: Found on dry, open slopes and mesas, from 4,000-7,000 ft (1219-2134 m); flowering April-November.

Distribution: New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, and California.

Notes: Good indicators for this species include the many-flowered inflorescences, the leaf blades thick and about as wide as long, shallowly lobed, and the gray or whitish pubescence of the herbage, and the hemispherical fruits. Kearney and Peebles note that this species is extremely abundant in north-central and northern Arizona, and superficially resembles S. incana, but is distinguished by the whitish or grayish (not yellowish) herbage, less virgate inflorescence, smaller, more rounded leaves, flatter fruit, and less cuspidate carpels. Distinguish from S. ambigua by its more numerous and smaller flowers, fruits equaling or surpassing the calyx, and less galeate and less prominently reticulate carpels.

Ethnobotany: Plant used for sores, cuts and wounds, and for babies with bowel trouble, root chewed or boiled with cactus root and used for difficult defecation, for broken bones. Juice made into a paste and mixed with clay before molding it into a pot. Plant used for mid-winter ceremonials.

Synonyms: Sphaeralcea ambigua subsp. rugosa, Sphaeralcea ambigua var. rugosa, Sphaeralcea arizonica, Sphaeralcea marginata

Editor: LCrumbacher 2012

Etymology: Sphaeralcea comes from the Greek sphaira, "a globe," and alcea, a related genus, referring to the spherical fruits, the common name of this genus being "globe-mallow", while parvifolia comes from the Greek parvus, "small," and flora, "flower," hence "small-flowered".