White checkerbloom

Description

Sidalcea candida, the white checkerbloom, prairie mallow or white checkermallow, is a wildflower found from Nevada to Wyoming and south to the southern part of New Mexico. The plant grows to three feet, and is also known as wild hollyhock. Its flowers are about one inch wide with five petals. It is found mostly in mountain meadows and along streams. It flowers between June and September. 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).