

MALLOW FAMILY. 261 



Leaves ovate ; petals yellow ; shrub 3. M. arcuatum. 



Herbage finely stellate-canescent; petals rose-color; shrub 4. M. fasciculatum. 



1. M. exile Gray. Herbage with a short stellate pubescence, and often 

 with some longer spreading hairs; stems branching from the base, diffuse or 

 decumbent, 4 or 5 in. to 1% ft. long; leaves palmately 3 to 5-cleft, the lobes 

 commonly laciniately toothed; flowers of different plants of two intergrading 

 sorts, one chiefly pistillate with small white or rose-colored corollas (3 to 5 

 lines long), the other perfect and with much larger rose-colored corollas (6 to 

 10 lines long); calyx with an involucre of 3 slender bractlets; calyx-lobes 

 ovate, very slenderly acuminate or even subulate; carpels strongly rugose. 



San Joaquin Valley westward to Monterey Co. and southward to Southern 

 California. Apr.-June. (Cf. Zoe, v, 144.) 



2. M. fremontii Torr. Woody at base, stout, 2 to 3 ft. high, densely 

 white-tomentose; leaves very thick, round-ovate, shallowly 5 to 7-lobed, ere- 

 mite, 2 to 4 in. broad, on petioles % to 1 in. long; flower-clusters sessile in the 

 axils or short-peduncled, interrupted-spicate at summit of stem; calyx ovate, 

 densely and closely woolly, only the tips of the lobes visible, almost equaled 

 by the 3 linear-setaceous bractlets of the involucre; corolla rose-color, 7 or 8 

 lines long; carpels thin, smooth, promptly dehiscent. 



Mt. Diablo; Corral Hollow. June. Var. cercophorum Robinson. Calyx 7 

 to 9 lines long, its lobes lance-linear and caudate-attenuate, nearly or quite 

 equaling the petals. — Arroyo del Valle, Alameda Co. June. 



3 M. arcuatum (Greene) Robinson. Shrub 6 to 8 ft. high, with virgate 

 terete branches covered with a dense or felt-like white tomentum; leaves ovate 

 to ovate-orbicular, little or not at all lobed, truncate at base, more or less 

 rugose, canescent-tomentose beneath, becoming green above, dentately toothed, 

 % to 2 in. long, on petioles, % to % as long; flower-clusters sessile in the 

 upper axils and at the ends of the branches, forming long interrupted unilateral 

 spikes; bractlets linear-filiform, equaling the tomentose calyx; petals rose-color, 

 7 to 9 lines long. 



Santa Cruz Mts. from near Belmont to Los Gatos, thence east to Evergreen. 



4. M. fasciculatum (Nutt.) Greene. Shrub 5 to 10 ft. high, with long 

 slender wand-like branches; pubescence short and close; leaves round-ovate, 

 irregularly or obscurely lobed, crenate, mostly truncate or subcordate at base; 

 flowers in sessile or short peduncled clusters, which are loosely paniculate or 

 disposed on short branches in a very narrow panicle; calyx-lobes ovate, obtuse 

 or with a very short point; petals rose-purple, 5 to 9 lines long; carpels smooth, 

 promptly dehiscent. — (M. thurberi Gray. Malva fasciculata Nutt.) 



Dry inner South Coast Range hills; Mt. Diablo; Pacheco Pass and south- 

 ward to Southern California. June-July. 



5. SIDA L. 

 Ours low yellowish scurfy-tomentose perennial herbs. Pedicels articulated. 

 Involucel of 1 to 3 slender deciduous bractlets. Flowers cream-color. Carpels 

 1-seeded, indehiscent or splitting into 2 valves. Seeds pendulous. (Greek name 

 used by Theophrastus for a species of Water-lily.) 



1. S. hederacea (Dougl.) Torr. Alkali Mallow. Stems from deep- 

 seated taproots, decumbent, more or less branching, \( 2 to 1 ft. long; leaves 

 round-reniform or ovate, dentate or serrate, % to 2 in. broad, on petioles y.> to 

 1 in. long; flowers pediceled, axillary, solitary or in small clusters; calyx- 



