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cheeseweed, alkali mallow, small-whorl mallow

low 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

Malva pusilla

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