This was planted in the mission gardens by the Fathers and is now common around San Francisco. It is a branching shrub, from six to fifteen feet high, with a twisted, gray trunk and large handsome leaves, light green and very soft and smooth to the touch, paler and downier on the under side. The flowers are handsome and conspicuous, two or three inches across, with bright pink petals, warm and rich in tone, beautifully striped with maroon and shading to yellowish-white towards the center, with a purple pistil and grayish anthers. The flowers and seed-vessels hang on curved pedicels, like pipe-stems, giving a rather odd effect. The leaves and twigs are very mucilaginous.
There are many kinds of Sphaeralcea, much like Malvastrum, except that they have two or three ovules, instead of one, in each cavity of the ovary. The name is from the Greek, meaning "globe-mallow," in allusion to the usually roundish fruit.
Scarlet Mallow
Sphaerálcea pedàta
Red
Spring
Southwest
These graceful wands of brilliant bloom are very common in spring in Arizona. The flowers are over an inch across, vivid yet delicate in color, shading from luminous scarlet to clear pale-orange. The buds are tipped with deeper red and the foliage is rather pale green, somewhat hairy and downy. The stems are from one to two feet tall and bend slightly to one side, swaying to and fro in the wind and displaying their flaming blossoms to great advantage.
Salmon Globe Mallow—Sphaeralcea pedata.
Tree Mallow—Lavatera assurgentiflora.
False Mallow—Malvastrum Thurberi.
ST. JOHN'S-WORT FAMILY. Hypericaceae.
Not a large family, mostly natives of temperate and warm regions. Ours are herbs, sometimes shrubby, without stipules, with opposite, toothless leaves, with clear or black dots; the flowers regular and complete, all the parts borne on the receptacle; the sepals and petals usually five; the stamens usually numerous, sometimes grouped in three to five clusters; the ovary superior; the fruit a capsule.