Cluster Mallow

This species is similar to Malva parviflora but differs in having a glabrous staminal column and obviously reticulate mericarps.

Annual or biennial herb, 0.5-2.5 m tall. Stem green to purplish stellate hairy, glabrescent. Leaves usually orbicular, 3-23 cm long, 4-25 cm broad, cordate or subtruncate at base, upper surface with sparse simple or 2-rayed hair, glabrescent, lower with stellate simple or 2-rayed hairs, more hairy than above coarsely crenate-dentate, usually 5 lobed; stipule lanceolate, 5 mm long, c. 4 mm borad, glabrous except long ciliate margin; petiole 4-24 cm long, densely tomentose above, elsewhere glabrescent except the groove. Flowers axillary, 2-many, loose or compact; pedicel visible or not sparsely stellate hairy 3-5 (-10) mm long. Epicalyx segments linear or linear-lanceolate 3-6 mm long, 1-1.5 mm broad, glabrescent, margin ciliate. Calyx free to halfway down; sepals 5-6 mm long, 3-4 mm broad, very sparsely stellate hairy without finely reticulately veined accrescent in fruit, up to 12 mm long and 8 mm broad; lobes deltoid with long ciliate margin. Petals 7-9 mm long, purplish glabrous clawed, slightly notched. Staminal column 4.5mm long glabrous or simple hairy above, Fruit enclosed in accrescent calyx, 5-7 mm across; mericarps 10-12, glabrous, rugose on the margins, centrally grooved or smooth on the dorsal side, radially rugose, c.2 mm across in all directions. Seed dark brown-black c.1-1.5 mm long and broad, glabrous.

Herbs biennial, 50-100(-120) cm tall; stem sparsely stellate velutinous. Stipules ovate-lanceolate, 3-5 × 2-4 mm, stellate puberulent; petiole 2-8(-15) cm, puberulent in adaxial groove, glabrescent; leaf blade reniform or round, (3-)5-11 × (2-)5-11 cm, both surfaces very sparsely strigose or subglabrous, 5-7-lobed, lobes rounded or acute, margin crenate-serrate. Flowers 3- to many-fascicled, axillary. Pedicels 2-15(-40) mm. Epicalyx lobes filiform-lanceolate, (3-)5-6 mm, ciliate. Calyx cup-shaped, 5-8 mm, lobes broadly triangular, sparsely stellate strigose. Corolla whitish to reddish, slightly longer than sepals; petals 6-8 mm, apex retuse; claw glabrous or sparsely hairy. Filament tube 3-4 mm, glabrous or with a few simple hairs. Style branches 10-11. Schizocarp flat-globose, 5-7 mm in diam.; mericarps 10-12, abaxially smooth, ca. 1 mm thick, angles rounded and rugose, sides reticulate. Seeds purple-brown, reniform, ca. 1.5 mm in diam., glabrous. Fl. Mar-Nov.

Europe, Egypt, Abyssinia, Himalaya (Kashmir to Bhutan), India, China, N.E. Asia, occasionally cultivated.

2100-3000 m

Hills, plains, also cultivated and becoming weedy. Anhui, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Bhutan, India, Korea, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan; E Africa (Ethiopia), Europe; invasive weed in North America].