Sidalcea calycosa
species of plant
Sidalcea calycosa is a species of flowering plant in the mallow family known by the common names annual checkerbloom, checker mallow, and vernal pool checkerbloom.
Distribution
The plant is endemic to California, along the North Coast and adjacent Northern California Coast Ranges from Mendocino County to Marin County in the northern San Francisco Bay Area, and in sections of the western Sierra Nevada foothills from Butte County south into Tulare County.
It grows in wetland habitats, including marshes and vernal pools, in oak woodland and chaparral openings, grasslands, and coastal salt marsh plant communities.
Description
Sidalcea calycosa is a rhizomatous herb growing 30 centimetres (12 in) to nearly 1 metre (3.3 ft) tall. Despite its common name it may be annual or perennial, depending on the subspecies. The leaves have blades deeply divided into narrow linear lobes, almost divided into leaflets.
The inflorescence is a dense, showy panicle of several flowers each with five pink, purplish, or white petals up to 2.5 centimeters long. The bloom period is April through September.
Subspecies
The two subspecies are:
Sidalcea calycosa ssp. calycosa — annual, blooms March to June, below 1,200 metres (3,900 ft).
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This entry incorporates text from “Sidalcea calycosa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.