Scarlet or common globemallow Scarlet or common globemallow

Malva coccinea Nuttall, Cat. Pl. Upper Louisiana, no. 51. 1813; Malvastrum coccineum (Nuttall) A. Gray; Sida coccinea (Nuttall) de Candolle

Plants perennial, rhizomatous. Stems 3–6, ascending or decumbent, light green to grayish, 1–3(–5) dm, stellate-canescent. Leaf blades green to gray-green, broadly to elongate-deltate, 3–5-lobed or pedately divided with relatively broad lobes, midlobe and often primary side-divisions pinnately few-cleft to parted, spatulate to narrowly spatulate, 1–6 cm, not rugose, base cuneate, margins entire, surfaces stellate-canescent. Inflorescences racemose or paniculate, crowded, few–many flowered, tip not leafy; involucellar bractlets deciduous, green to gray-green. Flowers: sepals 5–10 mm; petals red-orange, 5–20 mm; anthers yellow. Schizocarps flattened spheric-conic; mericarps 10–14, 3–3.5 × 2.5–3 mm, thick, coriaceous, nonreticulate dehiscent part 10–35% of height, muticous, indehiscent part usually wider than dehiscent part. Seeds 1 per mericarp, gray to black, ± glabrous.

Varieties 2 (2 in the flora): w, c North America, n Mexico.

Sphaeralcea coccinea is variable; it is one of the first sphaeralceas to bloom and is commonly found on roadsides.

SELECTED REFERENCE La Duke, J. C. and D. K. Northington. 1978. The systematics of Sphaeralcea coccinea (Nutt.) Rydberg. SouthW. Naturalist 23: 651–660.

Lower Taxa

• Sphaeralcea coccinea var. coccinea
• Sphaeralcea coccinea var. elata (Baker f.) Kearney