Malacothamnus densiflorus (Yellow Stem Bushmallow)

6/3/01 Cleveland Forest Road (from Tenaja), Riverside County, CA

LIFE LIST NOTES:

COMMON NAME: Yellow Stem Bush Mallow, Many-Flowered Bush Mallow

SPECIES: Malacothamnus densiflorus

FAMILY: Malvaceae (Mallow Family)

LIFE LIST DATE: 6/3/2001

LOCATION: Cleveland Forest Road (from Tenaja), Riverside County, CA

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From Wikipedia:

Malacothamnus densiflorus is a shrub with a slender, multibranched stem approaching 2 metres (6.6 ft) in maximum height. It is coated in thin to dense yellowish or tan hairs.

The thick to leathery leaves are oval in shape, a few centimeters long, and sometimes divided into lobes.

The inflorescence is a spikelike cluster of many pale pink flowers with oval or somewhat triangular petals each up to a centimeter long.

From Jepson eFlora:

lant 2 m, branches slender; hairs dense, ± yellow, woolly, occasionally glandular. 

Leaf: blade 3–6 cm, round to ovate, thin, 3–5-lobed, long-shaggy-hairy abaxially, sparsely short-hairy adaxially. 

Inflorescence: spike-like; flowers generally >= 10 per node; leaf-like bracts < 3; flowering stalks 1–1.5 cm; bractlets >= calyx. 

Flower: calyx <= 1 cm, ± 0.4 cm wide, hairs <= 3 mm; petals 1–2 cm; filament column < petals. 

Fruit: segments 2.2–3.8 mm, ovate, shallowly notched, brown. 

Chaparral slopes; 100–1100 m. South Coast, San Bernardino Mountains, Peninsular Ranges, Sonoran Desert; northern Baja California.