Flora of North America species comparison

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Malacothamnus clementinus

San Clemente Island bush-mallow
Habit Subshrubs, 0.4–1 m, branches slender, indument white or grayish, sparse to dense, shaggy-tomentose, canescent, hairs mostly stellate, stalked, 10–30-armed.
Leaf

blades ± round, 3- or 5-lobed, to 5(–8) cm, thin to moderately thick, surfaces: adaxial dark green and glabrate, abaxial soft-tomentose, lobes triangular to rounded, basal sinus not overlapping.
Inflorescences

short-spicate, flower clusters subsessile, congested;

involucellar bractlets filiform to linear, 3–9 × 0.5 mm, 3/4 to exceeding calyx length.
Flowers

calyx campanulate, 5–9 mm, lobes coherent, narrowly triangular, 3.5–6.5 × 1.5–2.3 mm, ca. 2 times as long as wide, 2–3 times tube length, apex long-acute to acuminate, densely villous;

petals white, fading lavender, 1.5 cm.
Mericarps

2–3 mm.
2n

= 34.

Malacothamnus clementinus
Phenology Flowering Mar–May.
Habitat Coastal sage scrub
Elevation 100–400 m (300–1300 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
CA
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Of conservation concern.

Malacothamnus clementinus is known from San Clemente Island and is considered endangered. In leaf characters it is similar to M. fasciculatus; in indument and calyx characters, it approaches M. fremontii. The petals are often not overlapping, a feature rare in Malacothamnus. Malacothamnus clementinus tends to propagate mainly via rhizomes and rarely produces fertile seeds.

Malacothamnus clementinus is in the Center for Plant Conservation’s National Collection of Endangered Plants.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 6, p. 283.
Parent taxa Malvaceae > subfam. Malvoideae > Malacothamnus
Sibling taxa
M. abbottii, M. aboriginum, M. davidsonii, M. densiflorus, M. fasciculatus, M. fremontii, M. jonesii, M. marrubioides, M. palmeri
Synonyms Malvastrum clementinum, Sphaeralcea orbiculata var. clementina
Name authority (Munz & I. M. Johnston) Kearney: Leafl. W. Bot. 6: 127. (1951)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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