The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Owens Valley checkerbloom, Owens Valley sidalcea

Habit Herbs, perennial, 0.2–0.6 m, often glaucous, with fleshy, simple to clustered roots, without caudex or rhizomes.
Stems

several, clustered, erect, solid, often glaucous proximally, base sparsely, finely to coarsely stellate-hairy or hispid, hairs smaller distally.

Leaves

2–5 per stem, mostly basal;

stipules linear-lanceolate, 3–6 × 1 mm;

petiole (4–)5–10 cm, reduced on cauline leaves, proximal 1–4 times as long as blade, distal 1/2 times to as long as blade;

blade fleshy, glaucous, rather densely stellate-hairy, proximalmost usually shallowly to deeply, ternately, palmately 5–7-lobed, 1.5–3 × 1.5–4 cm, lobes obovate, margins crenate-dentate, distal deeply 3–7-lobed, lobes linear, distalmost 2–4 cm wide.

Inflorescences

erect, open, calyces not conspicuously overlapping except sometimes in bud, branched or unbranched, nearly scapose, often 20+-flowered, slender, elongate, 1-sided or not, 6–30 cm;

bracts inconspicuous, linear, 2-fid, 2–4 mm, shorter than calyx and pedicels.

Pedicels

2–8(–10) mm;

involucellar bractlets absent.

Flowers

bisexual;

calyx 5–8 mm, uniformly, densely stellate-puberulent or few with longer rays;

petals pale pink-lavender, veins paler, 10–15 mm;

staminal column 4–5 mm, hairy;

anthers white;

stigmas 5 or 6.

Seeds

1 mm.

Schizocarps

5 mm diam.;

mericarps 5 or 6, 2.5 mm, sparsely glandular-puberulent, roughened, back reticulate-veined, sides strongly so, not pitted, mucro 0.1–0.3 mm.

2n

= 20.

Sidalcea covillei

Phenology Flowering (Apr–)May–Jun.
Habitat Alkaline flats, springs, meadows
Elevation 1100–1400 m (3600–4600 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
CA
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Sidalcea covillei is one of two species of Sidalcea (along with S. neomexicana) with fleshy roots and adapted to alkaline conditions on flats. Its range (Owens Valley in Inyo County) and specialized habitat have made it vulnerable to any lowering of the water table and to grazing; it is listed as endangered in California. Most individuals of it were destroyed by construction of the Haiwee Reservoir. Once thought to have been extirpated, it was subsequently rediscovered.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 6, p. 329.
Parent taxa Malvaceae > subfam. Malvoideae > Sidalcea
Sibling taxa
S. asprella, S. calycosa, S. campestris, S. candida, S. celata, S. cusickii, S. diploscypha, S. elegans, S. gigantea, S. glaucescens, S. hartwegii, S. hendersonii, S. hickmanii, S. hirsuta, S. hirtipes, S. keckii, S. malachroides, S. malviflora, S. multifida, S. nelsoniana, S. neomexicana, S. oregana, S. pedata, S. ranunculacea, S. reptans, S. robusta, S. setosa, S. sparsifolia, S. stipularis, S. virgata
Synonyms S. neomexicana var. covillei
Name authority Greene: Cybele Columb. 1: 35. (1914)
Web links