Malva parviflora

Cheeseweed, little mallow, Little Mallow

Family: Malvaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Cheeseweed is a naturalized annual herb found in the California Floristic Province and desert regions in disturbed places at elevations below 2,500 meters. Flowering from March to August, this plant produces white to pink flowers small and delicate, typically 3 to 5 millimeters long, clustered 2 to 4 in leaf axils. Growing with prostrate to erect stems 20 to 80 centimeters tall that are widely branched and stellate-hairy near the tips, it spreads easily across disturbed landscapes. Its leaves are broadly rounded to kidney-shaped, 2 to 8 centimeters wide, with 5 to 7 rounded lobes and distinctive stipules 4 to 5 millimeters long. The fruit is a distinctive wheel-like structure 6 to 7 millimeters in diameter, with approximately 10 to 11 segments that are wrinkled and net-veined with thin, toothed outer edges.

Habitat: Common. Disturbed places

Bloom period: Mar-Aug

Elevation: < 2500 m

Bioregions: CA-FP, D

California counties: Kern, San Bernardino, San Diego, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Luis Obispo, Imperial, Ventura, Orange, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Plumas, Fresno, Alameda, San Benito, Santa Barbara, Tulare, San Mateo, Yolo, Santa Clara, Stanislaus, Monterey, Colusa, Contra Costa, Inyo, San Joaquin, Kings, Sutter, Placer, Merced, Sacramento, Butte, Yuba, Napa, Humboldt, Lake, Nevada, Solano, Mendocino, Tuolumne

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.