Waxy checkerbloom

Description

Sidalcea glaucescens is a species of flowering plant in the mallow family known by the common name waxy checkerbloom. It is native to California, where it grows in the southernmost mountains of the Cascade Range and the Sierra Nevada, its distribution extending just over the border into Nevada. It can be found in mountain meadow habitats of yellow pine forest, red fir forest, lodgepole forest, and subalpine forest. Sidalcea glaucescens is a perennial herb grows from a thick taproot and caudex unit, producing a slender, waxy stem up to 70 centimetres (28 in) long. The leaves are deeply divided into about five lobes which may be forked or edged with smaller lobes. The inflorescence is a loose panicle of several flowers with pink or purplish petals 1 to 2 centimeters long. The bloom period is June to August. Sidalcea is a genus (approx. 25 species) of the botanical family Malvaceae. It contains several species of flowering plants known generally as checkerblooms or checkermallows, or prairie mallows in the United Kingdom. They can be annuals or perennials, some rhizomatous. They are native to West and Central North America. In mid- to late summer the clumps of toothed basal leaves produce erect flowering stems, with 5-petalled mallow-type flowers in terminal racemes, in shades of pink, white and purple. Sidalcea is generally diploid (2n = 20), but polyploidy (4n, 6n) also occurs. Annuality appears to have evolved multiple times (4+) within this genus, although an ancestral annual state with annual paraphyly is also possible. Further, evolution rates within annual Sidalcea lineages appear to be faster than those of perennial lineages, at least when examining nuclear ribosomal DNA (internal and external transcribed spacer regions).