PLANTS: Prostrate perennial herbs with stellate and lepidote pubescence.

LEAVES: asymmetrical, reniform to triangular, crenate or entire.

FLOWERS: solitary in the leafaxils on long pedicels; involucel trimerous or absent; calyx 5-lobed; petals pale yellow fading rose; styles with capitate stigmas.

FRUITS: schizocarpic, oblate, minutely pubescent; mericarps 7-10, more or less smooth, indehiscent.

SEEDS: solitary, glabrous.

NOTES: 4 spp., one from the Middle East, three from the Americas. (Diminutive of Malva = little Malva). Fryxell, P. A. 1974. Southw. Naturalist 19:97-103.

REFERENCES: Fryxell, Paul A. 1994. Malvaceae. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. Volume 27(2), 222-236.