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SIDALCEA, Gray. The annual species of this well-marked genus are quite clear, and having recently been noted in Proc. Am. Acad. xxi. 409. The are S. diploscypha, S. hirsuta, and the badly named S. calycosa of M. E. Jones (S. sulcata of Mrs. Curran), with the outer phalanges of the andrœcium broad and rather distant from the inner; and S. Hartwegi with its var. tenella (S. tenella, Greene), having the narrower outer phalanges closely approximate to the terminal ones. There is also the ambiguous annual species, S. malachroides [1], which in addition to its peculiar habit is nearly diœcious. But several of the perennial species produce individuals with wholly female flowers.

The perennial species are hard to discriminate [2]; but those indicated by Prof. E. L. Greene may probably be maintained, as also one or two more. Hoping for more light upon some of them, I here merely indicate, in a foot-note, my tentative distribution.

SIDALCEÆ PERENNES.

• Phalanges manifest, at least the exterior series: leafy-stemmed: some lowest cordate-orbicular leaves undivided.
  • Corolla uniformly white: anthers bluish.
    • S. CANDIDA, Gray.
  • Corolla rose-color or mauve, rarely a white variety.
    • Herbage cinereous with soft and short pluriradiate stellular pubescence, no hirsute or hispid hairs: outer phalanges broad, bearing short filaments.
      • S. CALIFORNICA [3], Gray, Pl. Fendl. 19. Sida Californica, Nutt. in Torr. & Gray, Fl. i. 233. Abounds near Santa Barbara. in the Santa Inez Mountains
    • Herbage green, at least not cinereous: coarser pubescence when present of simple or geminate or some pauciradiate hairs
      • Mature carpels when dry rugulose-reticulated on the sides, mostly on the back also: petals half inch to inch long.
        • S. MALVÆFLORA [4], Gray as to syn. Sida malvaflora, DC. S. humilis, Gray. Pl. Fendl. 20. The outline figure of Moçino & Sesse is perfectly decisive, and show the characteristic hirsute hairs, the char. "glabriuscula" of the Prodromus not withstanding. Sida delphinifolia, Nutt., is a form of it. Here also Nuttallia malvaflora Fisch. & Meyer.
        • S. ASPRELLA [3], Greene, Bull. Calif. Acad. i. 38, founded on a lax and decumbent and unusually equably leafed state of a usually erect and tale species, has no hirsute nor hispid pubescence, but is roughish with minute and dense almost scurfy stellular pubescence, or below glabrous; the petals are usually an inch long; the carpels rugose-reticulated throughout and glabrous at maturity, becoming concave or grooved on the back and acute angled. I collected it at Chico, in the lower cañons.
        • S . CAMPESTRIS, Greene, l. c., is either glabrous up to the inflorescence, or with some hirsute hairiness below and cinereous stellular pubescence above; petal over half-inch but rarely full inch long, with emarginate summit usually more laciniate-erose than is common; calyx minutely canescent and with or without some soft slender hairs, or rarely glabrous; carpels roughish-rugose or favose-reticulated and commonly pubescent, with rather rounded back and obtuse lateral angles. This is partly S. Oregana, Pl. Fendl. and is Sida malviflora Lindl. Bot. Reg. t. 1036, and Hook. Fl. i. 108. It grows either in moist meadows, where it is smooth, or on dry hills and plains, there more pubescent and hairy; it is common in the northern (and perhaps also he southern) parts of California, and in Oregon and Washington Territory west of the Cascade Mountains. Some forms nearly approach the next.
        • S. OREGANA, Gray, Pl. Fendl. l.c., partly. Generally more slender, but commonly tall, merely puberulent, or glabrous up to the simple or paniculate racemes, comparatively small flowered, the canescent calyx only a third or half inch long and with broadly deltoid lobes: carpels obscurely rugulose-reticulated, at least on the dorsal angles and sides, the back smooth or smoothish. It is Sida Oregana, Nutt. in Torr. & Gray, Fl. Mainly of the dry interior region of Oregon, Washington Territory, and Idaho, but as far west as Portland.
        • S. GLAUCESCENS, Greene, l.c., is smooth and glabrous up to and even through the inflorescence, yet sometimes with obscure pubescence on the pale or light green foliages; slender stems seldom over a foot or two high and leaves only an inch or two wide; racemes loose; petals quarter to half an inch long, not rarely white; calyx from glabrous to cinereous-puberulent, the lobes attenuate or acuminate from a broad base; mature carpels relatively large and thin walled, turgid, glabrous, with the coarse dorsal reticulation mostly longer than broad, or sometimes smooth and even. This is S. malvaflora, Watson, Bot. King. Exp. 46, in large part; also some of E. Hall's no. 71 of Oregon distribution. It abounds in the higher Sierra Nevada, extends east to Utah and northward apparently even to British Columbia.
      • Mature carpels smooth and even glabrous or nearly so; flowers mostly small; calyx lobes deltoid-ovate; hirsute pubescence not rare on stem petioles, and even on the calyx.
        • S. NEO-MEXICANA, Gray, Pl. Fendl. 23. S. malviflora, Gray, Pl. Wright. i. 20, mainly (excl. syn.); Greene, l.c. Mountains of New Mexico, N. Arizona and Colorado; also adjacent Mexico.
        • S. SPICATA, Greene, l. c. Differs from the preceding (perhaps not constantly) in the dense and oblong or interrupted spike of flowers, their pedicels shorter than the rather large calyx or hardly any. This is, as Professor Greene supposed, the Callirhoe spicata of Regel in his Gartenflora. We have seen it in the gardens under the name of Sidalcea Murrayana, apparently an unpublished name. It occurs on both the eastern and western sides of the Sierra Nevada, where it was long ago collected by Anderson and by Torrey; recently Prof. Henderson found it in Grant Pass, on the borders of Oregon.
• Phalanges crowded at the summit of the column and indistinct, most of the stamens being separate, the outermost combined more or less at base in threes or fours; scapose; radical and subradical leaves all pedately dissected.
  • S. PEDATA. A rather low species, with ascending scapes or scape-like stems and pedately 5–7-parted leaves rising from a tuberous-thickened root; petals (only 4 or 5 lines long) rose-purple; and carpels quite smooth and glabrous. — Bear Valley in the San Bernardino, S. California, collected by my valued correspondent, S. B. Parish.

[1] S. malachroides is a perennial.
[2] The perennial species of Sidalcea remain a difficult group, with divisions and relationships obscured by hybridisation and polyploidy.
[3] S. californica is now sunk in S. malviflora; S. asprella has also often been sunk in S. malviflora, but recent DNA studies suggest that it should be treated as a separate species.
[4] The current orthography is S. malviflora

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HTML and footnotes © 2003 Stewart R. Hinsley