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cheeseweed, alkali mallow, small-whorl mallow

Habit Prostrate or spreading, annual or biennial herbs, the stems 2-6 dm. long, puberulent.
Leaves

Leaves palmately veined, with petioles up to twice as long as the blades;

leaf blades cordate-reniform, 2-5 cm. long and slightly broader, shallowly 5-7 lobed, with fine teeth.

Flowers

Flowers in small clusters in the leaf axils, on long pedicels to sessile, white to pale lavender;

calyx shallowly 5-lobed, about equaling the corolla;

petals 5, clawed;

filaments fused into a tube, the stamens freed from the tube single or in pairs;

style branches stigmatic most of their length, not capitate;

ovary superior, the carpels in a ring around a central axis.

Fruits

Carpels flattened and strongly cross-corrugated on the back.

Malva parviflora

Flowering time March-August
Habitat Roadsides, forest edge, fields, ditches, wastelots, and other disturbed open areas.
Distribution
Occurring west of the Cascades crest in lowland western Washington; British Columbia to California, east to the Great Plains, also in southeastern and northeastern North America.
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Origin Introduced from Eurpoe
Conservation status Not of concern
Sibling taxa
M. moschata, M. neglecta, M. pusilla, M. sylvestris
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