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Strict Genus: Sphaeralcea

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Search by botanical or common name, genus, or family. SilvaGrid also recognizes many botanical synonyms and standard hybrid notation.

Name search: Use Botanical or Common Name to search a full botanical name such as Acer palmatum, a genus such as Acer, or a common name such as maple.
Synonyms: The same field recognizes many outdated or alternative botanical names and links them to their currently accepted taxa.
Hybrids and graft chimaeras: In the same field, you can type a standard 'x' in place of the botanical hybrid symbol (×). Use '+' when searching for graft chimaeras.
Family search: Use Botanical Family to explore taxa within a family such as Rosaceae.

1. Climate

About climate mapping

To make searching practical, SilvaGrid groups the bioclimatic zones from the World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP) into five primary macro-climates:

Tropical: Equatorial and tropical zones defined by consistent year-round warmth. This encompasses the wet tropics, seasonally dry tropics, and cooler high-altitude montane tropics.
Subtropical: Warm transition zones between tropical and temperate regions, typically characterized by mild, largely frost-free winters. (Note: WCVP groups dry-summer Mediterranean climates within this broader biome).
Temperate: Mid-latitude climates defined by distinct seasonal shifts, including a true winter season where regular frosts and plant dormancy are expected.
Arid: Moisture-deficient climates—including true deserts and dry shrublands—where evaporation exceeds precipitation, requiring severe drought adaptations.
Cold: High-latitude subarctic or high-altitude subalpine climates defined by severe winters, prolonged freezing, and highly restricted growing seasons.

These categories describe a species' primary native environment and serve as a broad baseline for cultivation. While many plants can be successfully grown across multiple macroclimates—for example, some species mapped to the Tropical macroclimate can also be grown in temperate climates—others may have much narrower climatic requirements within their mapped macroclimate. Local factors such as frost hardiness, summer heat, rainfall and soil conditions should always be considered before planting.

2. Plant Types

About plant types

SilvaGrid Plant Types are practical horticultural and botanical groupings derived from WCVP life-form descriptions, taxonomy, or a combination of the two. Some correspond closely to established botanical groups, while others bring together plants with similar growth forms for practical discovery.

Trees: Woody plants with persistent above-ground stems, generally forming an elevated crown or canopy. Large herbaceous tree-like plants are excluded.
Shrubs: Woody or partly woody plants with a shrub or subshrub growth form, typically branching low rather than forming a single main trunk.
Climbers & Vines: Plants with a climbing growth habit, including herbaceous climbers and woody lianas that use other vegetation or structures for support.
Conifers: Gymnosperms from the major conifer families, including pines, cypresses, podocarps and their relatives, ranging from low shrubs to large trees.
Palms & Cycads: True palms from the Arecaceae family together with cycads. The two are not close botanical relatives, but are grouped here as a practical horticultural and landscape category.
Ferns: Vascular, spore-producing plants within the fern group, ranging from small ground-layer and epiphytic forms to large tree ferns.
Grasses, Sedges & Rushes: A practical group combining true grasses, sedges, rushes and restios. Bamboos are shown separately because of their distinctive growth form.
Bamboos: Members of the grass family, shown separately from other grasses because of their distinctive growth forms and horticultural use.
Herbaceous Perennials: Non-woody, multi-year plants, including evergreen tropical perennials and large herbaceous forms. Bulbs and other geophytes are shown separately.
Annuals & Biennials: Short-lived plants that complete their life cycle over one or two growing seasons.
Bulbs & Geophytes: Plants with underground storage organs such as bulbs, corms, tubers or rhizomes, allowing them to persist through seasonal dormancy.
Cacti & Succulents: Cacti and other succulent plants with fleshy or thickened tissues associated with water storage, spanning many unrelated botanical groups.
Aquatic & Pond Plants: Plants adapted to living in water or water-saturated soils, including submerged, floating and emergent forms.
Air Plants & Epiphytes: Epiphytic and lithophytic plants that grow on trees or rocks, including many plants commonly described as air plants.

3. Native range (WGSRPD)

Continent

Region

Botanical country

About WGSRPD mapping

SilvaGrid uses the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) to organise native plant distributions. WGSRPD is an international botanical standard maintained by Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) and is also used by the World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP).

Botanical geography: SilvaGrid uses WGSRPD continents, regions and "botanical countries". These provide consistent units for recording plant distributions, but they do not always correspond exactly to modern political countries.
Consistent distribution data: Using the same geographic framework as WCVP allows SilvaGrid to preserve and compare native-range information consistently across the global plant dataset.

WGSRPD is a system for recording plant distributions rather than a climate, habitat or site-suitability classification.

Genus Sphaeralcea

View Botanical Profile & Insights

Belonging to the family Malvaceae, the genus Sphaeralcea is a group comprising 65 taxa. It is native to North America and South America. Across its taxa, it is most often linked to subtropical, temperate, and desert or dry shrubland environments. It features a mix of shrubs and herbaceous perennials.

Data Profile

Taxonomic Scale: 65 taxa (49 base species, 16 variants).
Centers of Diversity: North America (51), South America (16)
Primary Climates: Temperate (26), Desert Or Dry Shrubland (24), Subtropical (12)
Dominant Forms: Herbaceous Perennials (41), Shrubs (15), Annuals & Biennials (2)

65 taxa found

Showing 30 (page 1 of 3)

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Sphaeralcea ambigua

— Apricot Globe Mallow, Apricot Mallow Family: Malvaceae

Arid Herbaceous Perennials

Sphaeralcea ambigua subsp. ambigua

— Apricot Mallow Family: Malvaceae

Arid Herbaceous Perennials

Sphaeralcea ambigua subsp. monticola

— Desert Globemallow Family: Malvaceae

Sphaeralcea ambigua var. rosacea

Family: Malvaceae

Arid Herbaceous Perennials

Sphaeralcea ambigua var. rugosa

Family: Malvaceae

Arid Herbaceous Perennials

Sphaeralcea ambigua var. versicolor

— Apricot Mallow Family: Malvaceae

Arid Herbaceous Perennials

Sphaeralcea angustifolia

— Copper Globe Mallow, Narrow Leaved Globemallow Family: Malvaceae

Tropical Shrubs

Sphaeralcea angustifolia var. angustifolia

Family: Malvaceae

Tropical Shrubs

Sphaeralcea angustifolia var. oblongifolia

Family: Malvaceae

Temperate Herbaceous Perennials

Sphaeralcea australis

Family: Malvaceae

Temperate Shrubs

Sphaeralcea axillaris

Family: Malvaceae

Sphaeralcea bonariensis

— Latin Globemallow Family: Malvaceae

Subtropical Shrubs

Sphaeralcea brevipes

Family: Malvaceae

Subtropical Shrubs

Sphaeralcea caespitosa

— Jone's Globemallow, Jones' Globe Mallow Family: Malvaceae

Temperate Herbaceous Perennials

Sphaeralcea caespitosa var. caespitosa

— Tufted Globemallow Family: Malvaceae

Temperate Herbaceous Perennials

Sphaeralcea caespitosa var. williamsiae

— Railroad Valley Globemallow Family: Malvaceae

Temperate Herbaceous Perennials

Sphaeralcea chenopodifolia

Family: Malvaceae

Subtropical Shrubs

Sphaeralcea coccinea

— Copper Mallow, Globe Mallow Family: Malvaceae

Temperate Herbaceous Perennials

Sphaeralcea coccinea var. coccinea

— Scarlet Globe Mallow, Scarlet Globemallow Family: Malvaceae

Temperate Herbaceous Perennials

Sphaeralcea coccinea var. elata

— Copper Mallow, Globe Mallow Family: Malvaceae

Temperate Herbaceous Perennials

Sphaeralcea cordobensis

Family: Malvaceae

Subtropical Shrubs

Sphaeralcea coulteri

— Annual Globemallow, Coulter's Globemallow Family: Malvaceae

Sphaeralcea crispa

Family: Malvaceae

Sphaeralcea decipiens

Family: Malvaceae

Subtropical Shrubs

Sphaeralcea digitata

— Juniper Globemallow, Juniper Gobe Mallow Family: Malvaceae

Arid Herbaceous Perennials

Sphaeralcea emoryi

— Emory's Desertmallow, Emory's Globemallow Family: Malvaceae

Arid Herbaceous Perennials

Sphaeralcea endlichii

Family: Malvaceae

Sphaeralcea fendleri

— Fendler's Globemallow, Thicket Globe Mallow Family: Malvaceae

Temperate Herbaceous Perennials

Sphaeralcea fendleri var. albescens

Family: Malvaceae

Arid Herbaceous Perennials

Sphaeralcea fendleri var. fendleri

Family: Malvaceae

Temperate Herbaceous Perennials

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