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MALVASTRUM and SPHÆRALCEA. When the first-named genus was found, no
one supposed that in the principal North American species it came so very name
to Sphaeralcea. Certainly not Mr. Bentham, who in the Genera Plantarum
placed it is in the Eumalveae subtribe. The difficulty in this respect
some became apparent, was alluded to by Mr. Watson in the Botany of King's
Expedition, p. 48, and later by Prof. Rothrock in the Botany of Wheeler's
Explorations. Although the two genera are essentially confluent through certain
species, they really ought not to be combined under Sphæralcea,
nor can they be distinguished, as was supposed, by the number of ovules or
seeds. The practical course, in my opinion, is to retain in Malvastrum
the species with cell of the carpels conformed to the solitary ovule and seed,
therefore with no empty terminal portion, and to refer to
Sphæralcea those with solitary or occasionally two ovules, which
when the upper ovule is either abortive or wanting have the upper part, usually
the whole upper half, of the mature carpel empty, and of a different texture
from the lower part, being thin and smooth, while the latter has
rugose-reticulated sides. In these Pseudo-Malvastrum species, some of
them more commonly bi-ovulate, the mature carpels fall away clean from the
receptacle. In the true Sphæralcea they usually, after separation
from the axis and dehiscence, remain (as in some other genera) for some time
attached by a thread passing from the receptacle to the dorsal base of each
carpel, which at length tears away, sometimes from the receptacle, sometimes
from the back of the carpel.
Our species of Malvastrum and of Sphæralcea are
difficult, and have been not a little confused. I understand them as presented
below.
MALVASTRUM, Gray.
- Peduncles, at least the earlier ones, long and slender, one-flowered; calyx
involucellate by 3 slender bracts; petals rose-color varying to white; carpels
orbicular, rugose, muticous; annuals, not canescent nor tomentose.
Arizono-Californian. [1]
- M. ROTUNDIFOLIUM, Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. viii. 333.
- M. EXILE, Gray, Bot. Ives Colorado Exp. 8, &
Proc. l. c.
- Of a different group, with pedunculate clusters at length evolute into
unilateral spikes, similar rugose carpels, and rose-purple petals, is M.
Peruvianum, Gray, in Bot. Wilkes Ex. Exped., a Mexican form of which, weak
and straggling, is M. jacens, Watson, Proc. Am. Acad. xxi. 417.
- Peduncles or pedicels short or hardly any; petals yellow; pubescence
appressed or dense.
- Not canescent, of 2-4 rayed or some simple hairs, on the stems strigose;
calyx involucellate.
- Annual, narrow-leaved, comparatively northern.
- M. ANGUSTUM [2], Gray, Pl. Fendl.
22, & Man. 101. Although this is Sida hispida, Hook. Journ. Bot. i.
198 (from St. Louis), it can hardly be Pursh's plant, said to have been
collected in Georgia by Lyon, nor Elliot's plant of that name. Yet it is
possible, for M. angustum occurs as far east as Nashville, Tennessee,
and Lyon's explorations extended to the eastern border of that State.
- Suffrutescent perennials or in their most northern range becoming annual;
broader-leaved, tropical or subtropical species.
- M. RUGELII, Watson, Proc. Am. Acad. xvii. 367.
Probably introduced rather than truly indigenous to S. Florida, where, however,
it has thrice been collected; named, by Rugel, in specimens distributed by
Shuttleworth as Malva Americana, L. var.; by Garber; and later by
Curtiss, in whose distribution it is named Melochia serrata. It is
without doubt the Malva scoparia, Jacq. Collect. i. 59 & Ic. Rar. t.
39, said to come from San Domingo, but not the plant of L'Heritier. Discerning
this, it was named M. corchorifolia, Desrousseaux in Lam. Dict. iii.
755, an excellent specific name, which should have been adopted; but Mr. Watson
overlooked it on account of De Candolle's reference of it as a synonym to M.
scabra. To go back to that now would be making a superfluous new name [3]. We possess no W. Indian specimens, but they are probably
extant in the large herbaria. The carpels are muticous, or which a mere vestige
of a subapical cusp.
- M. TRICUSPIDATUM [4], Gray, Pl.
Wright. i. 16, & Bot. Wilkes Ex. Exped., where the synonymy is detailed.
The wholly strigose (mainly Malpighiaceous) pubescence, and the subapical and
two dorsal cusps of the carpels, are characteristic.
- M. SCABRUM [5], Gray in Bot.
Wilkes Ex. Exped. (excl. syn. Malva scoparia Jacq. Ic. Rar., which is
M. corchorifolia, Desrous.), comes between this and the next. It is not
North American, but Dr. Palmer collected it in Mexico, it being the M.
tricuspidatum, var. bicuspidatum, Watson, Proc. Am. Acad. xxi. 417.
The absence of the subapical cusp to the carpels is one of its characteristics;
the pubescence, although roughish, is not strigose-appressed in the way of
M. tricuspidatum, but more stellular, and the leaves are more cuneate at
base.
- Subcanescent with close and minute stellular pubescence, no strigose
pubescence on the stems; otherwise like the last preceding species.
- M. SCOPARIUM [6], Gray in Bot.
Wilkes Ex. Exped., l. c. Malva scoparia, L'Her. Stirp. t. 27. Flowers
sessile or nearly so in the axils and barely subspicate at the end of branches;
calyx canescent and lobes blunt; carpels 2-tuberculate on the back, but no
subapical cusp. Collected in Mexico by Berlandier and Gregg, and with the U. S.
in Arizona near Tuscon by Pringle, distributed as M. tricuspidatum.
- M. SPICATUM [7], Gray, Pl. Fendl.
22. Malva spicata, L. Spec. ed. 2; also M. Americana, L. Spec.
ed. 1, at least the plant of Breyn. Cent. 124, t. 57, on which that species
seems wholly to rest. M. spicata, ovata, and polystachya,
Cav. An unmistakable species, not known within the U. S., but collected by
Berlandier at Matamoras on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande.
- Cinereous with lepidote-stellular pubescence, perennial, with
foliaceous-involucellate flowers solitary and subsessile in upper axils, and
with rather large deep yellow petals; carpels coriaceous, smooth, hirsute at
top, there dorsally bigibbous and ventrally subulate-pointed.
- M. WRIGHTII, Gray, Pl. Fendl. 21, Pl. Lindh. ii.
160, & Gen. Ill. ii. 60, t. 131. Malva aurantiaca, Scheele in
Linnæa, xxi. 469, therefore Malvastrum aurantiacum [8], Walp. Ann. ii. 153. Texas.
- Peduncles or pedicels short; petals scarlet, copper-color, or rose-color;
carpels wholly pointless; involucel of slender deciduous bracts or hardly any.
Western perennials, some shrubby, canescent or tomentose with many-rayed
stellular pubescence. [9]
- Pubescence wholly lepidote and silvery, i.e. of peltate scales rather than
hairs; leaves very narrow; carpels coarsely reticulated on the sides.
- M. LEPTOPHYLLUM, Gray, Pl. Wright. i. 17, ii. 20. S.
W. Texas to S. Utah.
- Canescent-tomentose with short pubescence, but calyx, &c, hirsute:
mature carpels thin-walled, promptly 2-valved, smooth, suborbicular: flowers
said to be rose-color.
- M. PALMERI, Watson, Proc. Am. Acad. xii. 250, Bot.
Calif. ii. 437. Has rather large long-petioled leaves, and a few rather large
flowers in a capitate cluster at the summit of a terminal peduncle. Collected
only by Dr. Palmer near San Luis Obispo, California.
- M. DENSIFLORUM, Watson, Proc. Am. Acad. xviii. 368.
has numerous rather small flowers crowded in sessile heads, forming an
interrupted spike. S. California, Parish, Nevin.
- Throughout densely stellate-tomentose, no hirsute hairs on calyx: carpels
thin-walled, smooth, promptly 2-valved, oval with excised insertion: leaves
thickish, obscurely lobed: calyx-lobes long-acuminate: petals rose-color.
- M. MARRUBIOIDES, Durand and Hilgard, in Jour. Acad.
Philad. ser. 2, iii. 38, & Pacif. R. Rep. v. 6, t. 2. M. foliosum,
Watson, Proc. Am. Acad. xx. 356. Orcutt collects this in the northern part of
Lower California; with a var. PANICULATUM, having
copious and loosely paniculate flowers, some of them rather slender-pedicelled.
- M. FREMONTII, Torr. in Pl. Fendl. 21. Throughout
very densely soft-tomentose, and calyx most densely woolly; the plant so much
resembling Sphæralcea Lindheimeri of Texas, that it Bot. Calif. i.
86 it was mistaken for that. This is wholly Californian, from Calaveras Co.
southward.
- Both herbage and calyx canescent with close and fine almost scurfy
stellular pubescence, no hispid or hirsute hairiness.
- Frutescent or truly shrubby, 3 to 15 feet high: leaves barely lobed: mature
carpels smooth, glabrate, thin-walled, 2-valved: petals rose-purple.
- M. THURBERI, Gray, Pl. Thurb. 307; Bot. Calif. i.
85. Malva fasciculata, Nutt. in Torr. & Gray. Has sessile or
short-peduncled flower clusters, spicately or paniculately disposed on virgate
and nearly naked branches: is common in California from Monterey southward near
the coast, and extends into Arizona and S. Utah. Passes into var.
LAXIFLORUM, with somewhat loosely paniculate flowers,
which is M. spicudulum, Kellogg, Proc. Am. Acad. i. 65; Brewer and
Watson, Bot. Calif. 185, where wrong carpels are described by an accident.
- Herbaceous, low, with pedately parted or dissected leaves: carpels
round-reniform, tomentulose-pubescent, rugose-reticulated, tardily and
incompletely dehiscent: petals copper-red.
- M. COCCINEUM, Gray, Pl. Fendl. 21, 24 (partly), Pl.
Wright. i. 17 (with var. DISSSECTUM, Sida
dissecta, Nutt., which is only a most narrow-leaved from), & Gen. Ill.
ii. t. 121. The most eastward species, extending even to Iowa.
SPHÆRALCEA, St. Hil. char. auct.
According to the view now adopted,, the following are the North American
species. Some of them are not easy to be defined and probably run together.
- Malvastriform species, with or less depressed fruit: carpels
12-ovulate, the upper ovule when present abortive or seldom maturing, at
maturity more or less reniform, a length directly deciduous from the axis (no
retaining thread): lower and commonly only seminiferous portion strongly and
firmly reticulated over the thin or diaphanous sides; upper and usually empty
part smooth and commonly thin, bivalvular or introrse-dehiscent from the top:
perennial herbs, except perhaps the first species, which is indeed ambiguous
between this and the preceding genus.
- Root simple, perhaps a winter annual: mature carpel with the scarious empty
summit short and inflexed, thus round reniform in outline: petals
orange-scarlet: stellular pubescence rather loose: leaves roundish-subcordate,
slightly or moderately lobed and incised.
- S. COULTERI. S. Fendleri, partly, Torr. Bot.
Mex. Bound. 29. Malvastrum Coulteri, Watson, Proc. Am. Acad. xi. 125,
& Bot. Calif. i. 85, but no internal projection in carpel detected. W.
Arizona, first coll. by Coulter, then by Schott, Lemmon, &c. I collected it
at Maricopa in the early spring of 1865.
- Perennials, mostly lignescent rooted: carpels less reniform: the smooth
upper half or more being moderately incurved or erect.
- Leaves all or mainly palmately or pedately parted: mature carpels very
blunt: petals brick-red or orange-scarlet: species with great resemblance to
Malvastrum coccineum.
- S. PEDATIFIDA, Gray. Malvastrum pedatifidum,
Gray, Pl. Lindh. ii. 160 & Pl. Wright. i. 17, ii. 20. Sidalcea
Atacosa, Buckley, Proc. Acad. Philad. On the Rio Grande from El Paso
downward, also San Antonio, Texas.
- S. PEDATA, Torr. in Pl. Wright. i. 17, name only.
Sida grossularifolia, Hook. & Arn. Bot. Beech. 326, therefore
Malvastrum grossularifolium, Gray, Pl. Fendl. 21. M. coccineum,
Gray, Pl. Fendl. 21, partly {no. 21 Fendler}, & Pl. Wright. i. 16.
M. coccineum var. grossularifolium (and some Sphæralcea
Emoryi) Watson, Bot. King, Exp. 47. Malva Crerana (sp?), Graham in
Bot. Mag. t. 3998, probably came from this, perhaps is a hybrid. Extends from
W. Texas to S. Arizona and N. W. Nevada. Passes into var. ANGUSTILOBA, with very narrow divisions to leaves, the
Malvastrum coccineum, var., Gray, Pl. Wright. i. 17.
- Leaves undivided, at most obtusely 35-lobed, of roundish outline,
mostly cordate.
- Canescent throughout with short and close stellular pubescence, no loose
woolliness: carpels wholly pointless.
- S. MUNROANA, Spach. Malva munroana, Dougl. in
Lindl. Bot. Reg. t. 1306. Nuttallia Munroana, Nutt. in Jour. Acad.
Philad. vii. 16. Malvastrum Munroanum, Gray, Pl. Fendl. 21, excl. syn.
Chiefly of the northern interior region from the British boundary to Nevada,
Utah, and probably Arizona, where with lobed leaves it comes very near the
preceding. The flowers are brick-red, I believe, though the published figures
make the rose-red, and the calyx is short, not surpassing the depressed small
fruit.
- S. AMBIGUA. S. Emoryi, Torr. in Ives Colorado
Exp. Bot. 8; Watson, Bot. Calif. l.c., partly, not Pl. Fendl., nor Pl. Wright.
Less leafy than the preceding, more tomentulose, with commonly thicker and
merely crenulate-toothed leaves, more naked and racemiform inflorescence;
petals rose color varying to white, half-inch to inch long; calyx 4 to 6 lines
long, with acute or acuminate lobes surpassing the moderately depressed fruit,
the carpels of which are commonly 3 lines long, very like those of S.
Munroana, but larger, quite unlike those of S. Emoryi, Torr., with
which some forms have been confounded. It seems to be abundant over the arid
plains of Arizona and Nevada; also coll. in S. California by Thurber, Nevin,
Cleveland, &c.
- S. SULPHUREA, Watson, Proc. Am. Acad. xi. 125, is a
peculiar species of the Lower Californian Islands, with rather the habit of the
original S. cisplatina, St. Hil. It is said to have pale yellow flowers.
- Densely pannose-tomentose and calyx very woolly: corolla rose-red: ovules
often 3: carpel when mature much constricted in the middle.
- S. LINDHEIMERI, Gray, Pl. Lindh. ii. 162. S. Texas
and adjacent Mexico.
- Leaves undivided, of oblong-lanceolate outline, not rarely subhastately
3-lobed: pubescence close and canescent: petals orange-red: mature carpels
ovate, with deep reniform excision, tipped with a small and deciduous cusp,
often 2-seeded.
- S. HASTULATA, Gray, Pl. Wright. i. 17, ii. 21. S.
Texas and adjacent New Mexico and Mexico
- True Sphæralcæ, with fruit less or not at all depressed:
carpels 23-ovulate, 13-seeded, mostly oblong and with some ventral
excision, disposed to dorsal as well as ventral dehiscence, when separating
from the axis cohering by their sides and at base held by a kind of thread
which at length either tears away from the back of the carpel or else is
carried away with it: perennial herbs.
- Carpels canescent or glabrate on the back: leaves not Maple-like.
- Lanceolate to linear, not lobed, rarely even incised.
- S. ANGUSTIFOLIA, Spach. l. c. The genuine species,
with wholly pointless carpels having rounded summit and smooth or obscurely
rugose sides, is wholly Mexican. The corolla is said by Cavanilles to be
violaceous and the colored figures approach to that hue. On tickets the record
is commonly "rose-color". As Watson states, in Proc. Am. Acad. xvii.
331, striking as the difference is, one cannot specifically separate the
following.
- Var. CUSPIDATA. Mostly smaller-leaved and
smaller-flowered: petals "red": carpels narrower, tipped with an
erect cusp, which sometimes persists and becomes even a line long, sometimes is
reduced to a mucronate point, the short basal portion either slightly or
strongly rugose-reticulated on the sides. S. stellata, Torr.
& Gray, Fl. i. 228. Sida stellata, Torr. Ann. Lyc. N. Y. ii. 171.
Texas to Arizona and S. Colorado: also Mexico.
- Leaves of oblong or roundish outline and often cordate, mostly
35-lobed, sometimes dissected: cusps of the carpels more or less
extrorse.
- Leaves thickish, rugose and undulate: fruit depressed: carpels not at all
rugose-reticulated: calyx mostly half an inch long, and brick red petals
longer.
- S. EMORYI, Torr. in Gray, Pl. Fendl. 23 & Pl.
Wright. i. 21. only partly of later authorities. Thus far known only from
Arizona, on the Gila, coll. by Emory and by Parry, and from Chihuahua, Mexico,
by Gregg and Thurber.
- Leaves thinner, not rugose: fruit higher than wide, the carpels more or
less reticulated on the sides.
- More or less canescent, or stellular-pubescent: species perhaps confluent,
certainly variable.
- S. FENDLERI, Gray, Pl. Wright. i. 21, ii. 21. S.
miniata, Gray. Pl. Fendl. 19, and Gen. Ill. ii. 70, t. 127, not Spach.
Mountains of W. Texas to Arizona and northern part of New Mexico. Here also
seem to belong some forms which have been variously referred to S.
incana. The leaves are generally green or greenish, or only lower face
canescent, and their outline ovate-oblong or subhastate, incised or lobed but
not dissected: carpels prominently cuspidate.
- S. INCANA, Torr. in Gray, Pl. Fendl. 23, & Pl.
Wright. i. 21. Common in New Mexico, Arizona, and adjacent Mexico. Passes into
var. DISSECTA, Gray, Pl. Wright. l. c. a form with small
deeply 35-cleft or parted leaves, the divisions and lobes commonly
narrow.
- S. WRIGHTII, Gray, Pl. Wright. ii. 21, from N. E.
Chihuahua not far below the U. S. boundary, has not since been collected: it is
probably a good species.
- Leaves wholly green, small, rather finely dissected, obscurely pubescent,
or with the slender stems glabrous.
- S. RUSBYI. This I know only from a specimen (no. 53)
collected by Dr. Rusby near Prescott, Arizona, and belonging to the Torrey
herbarium. The stems are spicately or racemosely fewseveral-flowered:
lobes of the leaves linear or nearly so; petals red, not over a third of an
inch long: calyx loosely and subcanescently pubescent, the ovate lobes barely
equalling the hemispherical fruit; oblong carpels barely mucronulate, and sides
at base obsoletely rugulose.
- Carpels hirsute or hispid on the back: leaves Maple-shaped, comparatively
large and with acute serrate lobes: tall herbs, green or at least not
canescent.
- S. ACERIFOLIA [10], Nutt. in
Torr. & Gray, Fl. i. 228. S. rivularis, Torr. in Pl. Fendl. 23.
Malva rivularis, Dougl. British Columbia to Rocky Mountains, Dakota, and
at a single station in Illinois.
- S. LEPTOSEPALA, Torr. Bot. Wilkes Ex. Exped.
Washington Territory on the Upper Columbia, coll. by Pickering and
Brackenridge, and recently by Tweedy and Brandegee. Well marked by the slender
peduncles and caudate-attenuate calyx-lobes.
[1] These species are now separated as Eremalche
Greene.
[2] Correctly known as M. hispidum.
[3] The application of the rules on nomenclature is such that
M. rugelii has reverted to the earlier M. corchorifolium.
[4] Correctly known as M. coromandelianum.
[5] Correctly known as M. tomentosum.
[6] Also included under M. tomentosum.
[7] Correctly known as M. americanum.
[8] M. aurantiacum is the currently accepted name.
[9] These plants are now placed in Sphaeralcea
(leptophyllus and coccineus) and Malacothamnus.
Malvastrum thurberi is Malacothamnus fasciculatus.
[10] Now placed in Iliamna, as I. rivuluaris
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