Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Perennial herb, 20-50 cm tall, from a woody caudex; stems few to many, with this year's stems often growing up through the dried remnents of previous years' stems; herbage grayish-canescent throughout.

Leaves: Alternate along the stems; blades 1-3 cm long, the upper leaves simple and linear, and the lower leaves palmately 3-lobed, the lobes linear, 1-4 mm wide.

Flowers: Orange, in elongate racemes, usually with 1 flower per node; sepals 5, lance-attenuate, uniformly hairy, and fused together at the base; petals 5, orange, 8-12 mm long.

Fruits: Schizocarp splitting into 7-9 single-seeded carpels, these 3 mm high, the lower two-thirds of each carpel coarsely reticulate, the back of the carpel ridged or bumpy (tuberculate).

Ecology: Found on dry rocky slopes and plains, from 4,000-6,000 ft (1219-1829 m); flowers April-July.

Distribution: w TX to CO, UT, NM, and AZ

Notes: Common on the Colorado Plateau and throughout New Mexico, this globe mallow is easily distinguished from others in the genus because of its narrow, almost threadlike leaves. The upper leaves tend to be linear in shape, and the lower leaves are often 3-parted with narrow, linear lobes . It is easily recognized as a Sphaeralcea based on its characteristic orange 5-petaled flowers, and its fruits, which are shaped like a small wheel of cheese that splits into wedges, each containing a seed.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Sphaeralcea is from the Greek sphaira, a globe, and alcea, the hollyhock genus (a type of mallow); leptophylla translates to slender-leaved.

Synonyms: Malvastrum leptophyllum

Editor: AHazelton 2017