Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Perennial herb, 35-75 cm tall (occasionally taller), from a woody caudex; stems few to many per plant; herbage usually densely white-, yellow- or gray-canescent with stellate hairs.

Leaves: Alternate along the stems, on petioles; blades deltoid to broadly ovate, 1-5 cm long and about as wide, the base of the leaf wedge-shaped, heart-shaped or lobed; the lobes, if present, can be shallow or deep with the leaves cleft almost to the midrib into 3-5 wedge-shaped segments; margins irregularly toothed.

Flowers: Orange or pink, in narrow panicles, each node of the central axis with a small cluster of flowers; sepals 5, ovate to lance-acuminate, uniformly hairy, 5-9 mm long, fused together at the base; petals 5, orange-red or rarely rose-pink, 8-18 mm long.

Fruits: Schizocarps hemispheric, splitting into 12 single-seeded carpels, these thick-walled, 3 mm long, reticulate on the lower half.

Ecology: Found on mesas and slopes, often in pinyon-juniper woodlands, occasionally descending along streams to lower elevations, from 3,000-7,000 ft (914-2134 m); flowering April-October.

Distribution: WA, OR, ID, CA, NV, UT, AZ, sw CO, w NM.

Notes: This species has quite variable leaves, some deeply petately 3-5 lobed and others simply coarsely toothed. The stems and leaves are usually somewhat densely hairy and tinted with the color of the hairs, and the inflorescence has several flowers at each node on along the center stalk. Each flower has a couple of linear bractlets immediately below the calyx. The plants generally range from 35-55 cm tall, while many similar species tend to be taller. New Mexico material belongs to var. pedata. Sphaeralcea spp. can be tricky to tell apart, and the key characteristics are often on 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: Used as a laxative and to treat broken bones.

Etymology: Sphaeralcea is from the Greek sphaira, a globe, and alcea, the hollyhock genus (a type of mallow); grosulariifolia is a reference Ribes grossularia, the gooseberry bush, which has similarly shaped leaves.

Synonyms: Many, see Tropicos

Editor: LCrumbacher 2012, AHazelton 2017