Sidalcea ranunculacea

Marsh checker mallow

Family: Malvaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Marsh checker mallow is a California native perennial found in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains, specifically in the Greenhorn Mountains of Tulare and Kern counties, inhabiting moist meadows and streambanks at elevations of 1,820 to 3,050 meters. Flowering from June to August, this plant produces magenta-pink flowers occasionally white-veined, with petals 5 to 15 millimeters long that dry to a dark purple. Growing 20 to 50 centimeters tall with ascending stems that are bristly at the base and stellate-hairy above, it develops an elongate caudex. Its leaves are distinctively fleshy and stellate-hairy, with basal leaves shallowly 5-lobed and upper leaves deeply 5 to 7-lobed, featuring rounded basal lobes and acute upper lobes. The fruit segments are approximately 2.5 millimeters long with weakly net-veined sides and a rougher back surface.

Habitat: Uncommon. Moist meadows, streambanks, often near

Bloom period: Jun-Aug

Elevation: 1820-3050 m

Bioregions: s SNH (Greenhorn Mtns, Tulare, Kern cos.).

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