Keck's checkerbloom

Description

Sidalcea keckii is a rare species of flowering plant in the mallow family, known by the common names Keck's checkerbloom and Keck's checkermallow. The plant is endemic to California, where it is known from the Inner Northern California Coast Ranges and Southern Sierra Nevada foothills. Three recent occurrences in the southern Sierra, all of which may have been extirpated by now. The plant was thought extinct in the southern Sierra until it was rediscovered at one site in Tulare County in 1992. This site, which was located on private land, has since been converted for orange groves, possibly eliminating the plant. The owner of the land has not allowed any searches for the plant since then, but the area is considered critical habitat for this federally listed endangered species. Sidalcea keckii is an annual herb growing up to 35 centimeters tall which is bristly from top to base. The leaves have blades shallowly edged or deeply divided into lobes, the upper blades with toothed edges. The inflorescence is a dense cluster of a few flowers with deep pink petals measuring 1 to 2 centimeters long. Each flower has a calyx of pointed green sepals which may be streaked with pink. The bloom period is April and May. 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).