MALLOW FAMILY 495 



e. Ore.-Wash. boundary, Nuttall. S. obliqua Nutt.; T. & G. Fl. 1:233 (1838), type loc. Walla 

 Walla Eiver, e. Ore.-Wash. boundary, Nuttall. Disella hederacea Greene, Lflts. 1:208 (1906). 



6. MODIOLA Moench 



Low perennial herb. Leaves with the blades rounded, coarsely crenate, pal- 

 mately lobed or incised. Flowers small, solitary on axillary peduncles, subtended 

 by 2 or 3 narrow bractlets. Corolla dull red. Fruit a somewhat depressed circle 

 of 15 to 30 carpels with 2 seeds in each. Carpels reniform, septate between the 

 seeds, tardily 2-valved from the top, at length deciduous from the axis. — Species 1. 

 (Latin modiolus, relating to the wheel-like fruit.) 



1. M. caroliniana G. Don. Stems spreading, 6 to 18 inches long; leaf -blades 

 1 to 11/2 inches broad; petals 2 to 3 lines long; carpels hirsutulose. 



Introduced plant, sparingly naturalized in California. Virginia to Texas and 

 south to Argentina; South Africa. Sept. 



Locs. — Ferndale, Humboldt Co., Davy 6176; Auburn (Fl. Fr. 107) ; Berkeley, Jepson 10,750; 

 Los Banos, Merced Co., E. M. Johnston; Swift ranch, Madera Co., Kennedy; Los Angeles (Ery- 

 thea 1:58) ; Riverside, F. M. Seed 3679. 



Eefs. — MoDiOLA CAROLINIANA G. Don, Gen. Hist. PI. 1:466 (1831) ; Jepson, Man. 632 (1925). 

 Malva caroliniana L. Sp. PI. 688 (1753), type from the Carolinas. Modiola multifida Moench, 

 Meth. 620 (1794). M. decumbens G. Don, I.e. 



7. SPHAERALCEA St. Hil. Globe Mallow 



Herbs or shrubs, ours mostly hoary-tomentose or canescent, with commonly 

 roundish or angular leaf -blades. Flowers commonly in racemes, the racemes often 

 subpaniculate, sometimes corymbose, or often reduced to axillary fascicles. Co- 

 rolla rose or pink to red or white. Bractlets present (in ours), slender or filiform. 

 Carpels 5 or more, each 1 to 3-seeded, in fruit often dehiscent and 2-valved. Seeds 

 (at least the lower) ascending. — Species about 240, North and South America, 

 Africa. (Greek sphaera, a sphere, and alkea, mallow, the carpels commonly 

 spherical.) 



Tax. note. — In this treatment Sphaeralcea receives Malvastrum (as to North American 

 plants, which include the type of the genus) . The maintenance of Malvastrum as a separate genus 

 is difficult to justify upon available data. It would appear, however, that the two are somewhat 

 more clearly differentiated in certain areas of the Old World than in western North America. 

 According to Phillips (Genera of the South African Flowering Plants, 402, 403) the petals of 

 Malvastrum are always yellow, while in Sphaeralcea they vary from white to purple. No such 

 distinction holds for American plants. In western America the distinctions are as follows: 

 In Sphaeralcea the placenta is smaller and the carpels usually 2 or 3-ovuled. Sometimes however, 

 they are apparently only 1-ovuled, or more often the seed is solitary by abortion of the upper 

 ovule. Thus in 1-seeded carpels the upper portion is empty and often more or less reduced, 

 although sufficient to give a rounded appearance to the capsule. The lower portion of the carpel 

 sides is characteristically reticulated. In certain species or varieties, however, this reticulation 

 is obscure or obsolete. In Malvastrum the placenta is broader, the carpels 1-ovuled with the 

 ovule ascending and the centrally located seed nearly or quite completely filling the carpel. The 

 fruit is thus definitely flattened. These differences appear too slight to serve as the basis for 

 generic segregation. 



A. Carpels one-ovuled, one-seeded. — Subgenus Malvastrum. 

 Annuals ; leaf -blades orbicular. 



Petals rose-purple with crimson blotch at base ; leaves merely crenate 1. S. rotundifolia. 



Petals white or violet-purple, without blotch ; leaves 5 to 7-lobed. 



Flowers 2% to 4 lines long; herbage stellate-pubescent 2. S. exilis. 



Flowers 6 to 12 lines long; herbage hirsute 3. S. parryi. 



Perennials. 



Flowers in terminal heads ; calyx densely hirsute ; Monterey and San Luis Obispo Cos 



4. S. palmeri. 

 Flowers in axillary glomerules, the glomerules remotely spicate or in subpaniculate racemes ; 

 calyx stellate-pubescent or -hirsute. 



