Al Schneider's Rocky Mountains Plant Descriptions

Salt Spring Checkerbloom
Sidalcea neomexicana
Mallow family (Malvaceae)

Both deeply upper leaves and round grow on this slim, lost-in-the-grasses Mallow. The lovely abundance of rose-magenta flowers attracts attention and then you finally find the plants, often obscured by other plants in the wetlands. Plants grow to several feet tall in widely spread colonies. Although at first glance the plant might seem smooth (), a close look at and stems shows numerous hairs. Salt Spring Checkerbloom (Sidalcea neomexicana shares many characteristics with its close cousin White Checkermallow (Sidalcea candida).


©2008 Russ Kleinman, Western New Mexico
University Department of Natural Sciences and the
Dale A. Zimmerman Herbarium

Description

, from thickened roots, stems from 8-36" tall, hairy below. Leaf to 4" wide, with rounded or shallowly , stem leaves divided into 5 segments. Slender . Petals rose pink fading blue purple, from 1/2 to less than 1" long.

Field Marks

Tall, slender wetlands plant with varying leaf shapes and many pink flowers.

© Al Schneider

silky -- Covered with fine soft hairs, with a lustrous sheen. Satiny to the touch.

A perennial plant lives and blooms for many years.

pedicel -- The stem of a single flower.

A herb is a plant whose stems die back to the ground in the winter.

basal -- at the base, situated or attached at the base.

Like the teeth on a saw, leaves and other surfaces can have toothed edges.

basal leaves -- a leaf that grows lowest on the stem of a plant.

Cut deeply and (usually) unevenly (a condition intermediate between toothed and lobed).

Occuring at or very close to a margin.

blade -- Just the flat part of a leaf. Not the stem.

glabrous -- smooth, glossy, having no bristles or hair-like structures. Bald.

lobe -- Being divided by clefts.