"Sphaer" is Greek for "a sphere or globe" and "alcea" is Greek for "a mallow".

Sphaeralcea coccinea is a very common and variable plant of the low foothills and semi-desert regions.  It loves sandy, dry, open ground and often forms large patches.  Leaves are cut in many divisions and appear a silver green because the green leaf is covered with fine, white hairs.  Plants range from four inches to twenty inches tall with the larger plants looking, from a distance, very much like Sphaeralcea parvifolia.

"Coccin" is Latin for "scarlet".

Thomas Nuttall, famed 18th century botanist and Professor of Botany at Harvard, collected this species "From the River Platte to the Rocky Mountains" in 1811 and named the plant Malva coccinea.  Per Axel Rydberg renamed it Sphaeralcea coccinea in 1913.  (Information and quotation from Intermountain Flora,)

Click for a typical spring display of Sphaeralcea coccinea.

Semi-desert, foothills. Sand and rock areas, openings. Spring.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, May 23, 2011.

Sphaeralcea grossulariifolia typically grows to one or two feet tall but may reach over three feet.  Flowers are in tight bunches, leaves are deeply cut, and the plant is quite hairy.  Sphaeralcea grossulariifolia was not discovered in Colorado until about 2004 and it is known from just a few locations there.  It is, as the map below indicates, wide-spread in the other Four Corners states.

Sphaeralcea grossulariifolia was named Sida grossulariaefolia by William Jackson Hooker and George Arnot in 1838 from a collection made by members of the Hudson Bay Company in Idaho in 1837.  Per Axel Rydberg gave the present name in 1913. 

The specific epithet, "grossulariifolia" refers to some perceived resemblance of the foliage of this plant to that of some member(s) of the genus Grossularia (now Ribes) in the Gooseberry Family, scientifically called Grossulariaceae.  The family and genus were named by Augustin de Candolle in the early 1800s, sometime prior to the 1838 naming of this species.

Sphaeralcea grossulariifolia (Globe Mallow)
Malvaceae (Mallow Family) 

Semi-desert, foothills. Sand and rock areas, openings. Spring.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, May 23, 2011.

Although the deeply cut leaves of this plant are similar to Sphaeralcea coccinea (above), the two have distinctly different growth forms and flower arrangements: S. grossulariifolia grows to several feet tall in individual clumps; S. coccinea grows to less than a foot tall and spreads by underground roots so that there are almost always dozens of plants in a small area.  S. grossulariifolia has tightly packed clusters of flowers (as shown at left); S. coccinea has an elongated stalk of flowers.

Click for more Sphaeralcea grossulariifolia photographs.

Charles Wright first collected this species in 1851 and Asa Gray named it Malvastrum leptophyllum.  It was renamed Sphaeralcea leptophylla in 1913 by Per Axel Rydberg.  The Greek "lepto" + "phyllum" means "fine-leaved".

Sphaeralcea parvifolia also loves the hot and dry and can put on massive displays of flowers in Canyon Country.  In 2004, and even more so in 2005, hundreds of thousands of plants bloomed profusely for weeks in the Four Corners states.  (Click to see S. parvifolia putting on a show along the Colorado River.)

In contrast to S. coccinea, S. parvifolia has wavy-edged, broadly triangular, lobed leaves;

long flower stalks; and can grow, as shown in the picture at the left, to over three feet tall and four feet wide in almost a bushy structure.  "Parvifolia" is Latin for "small leaved".

Range map © John Kartesz,
Floristic Synthesis of North America

State Color Key

Species present in state and native
Species present in state and exotic
Species not present in state

County Color Key

Species present and not rare
Species present and rare
Species extirpated (historic)
Species extinct
Species noxious
Species exotic and present
Native species, but adventive in state
Eradicated
Questionable presence

Range map for Sphaeralcea coccinea  

Range map for Sphaeralcea grossulariifolia

Range map for Sphaeralcea leptophylla

Range map for Sphaeralcea parvifolia