Sphaeralcea incana

McDougall 1973

Duration: Perennial Nativity: Native Lifeform: Forb/Herb General: Perennial herb, sometimes suffrutescent, 50-200 cm tall; stems several; herbage covered with yellowish stellate cansescence. Leaves: Leaves alternate along the stems, on petioles; blades 3-7 cm long, bluntly 3-lobed, with the lateral lobes much shorter than the middle lobe. Flowers: Pink to reddish, in a narrow, interrupted panicle, up to 1 m long; sepals 5, fused at the base, about 6 mm long; petals 5, pink or darker, about 1 cm long. Fruits: Schizocarp splitting into several broad, cuspidate, shallowly notched carpels, each with a single seed. Ecology: Found on sandy or gravelly mesas or slopes, from 4,000-6,000 ft (1219-1829 m); flowers summer to autumn. Distribution: w TX, NM, AZ; south to n MEX. Notes: Distinguished by being covered with yellow stellate hairs; having flowers in long, narrow panicles that tend to have gaps between clusters of flowers; the panicles can be quite long, up to 1 meter; flowers are pink or darker; and leaves are longer than they are wide, with a pair of short lobes at the base. 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: Unknown, but other species in the genus have uses. Etymology: Sphaeralcea is from the Greek sphaira, a globe, and alcea, the hollyhock genus (a type of mallow); incana means covered with a whitish pubescence. Editor: AHazelton 2017