Plant Profile: Apricot Globe Mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua)

Oh, the Apricot Globe Mallow!  Be still my heart!  This humble mallow is perhaps my favorite desert shrub, bursting forth as it does in glorious coraly-salmon bloom.  (Some sources call the blooms "orange," but once you spend some time with this plant you will see that bland description doesn't quite do the color justice.)

 
Apricot Globe Mallow (also called Desert Globe-mallow, Desert Mallow, Apricot Mallow, Globe Mallow or seemingly any other combination of those words) is a member of the mallow family (Malvaceae) along with the familiar garden hollyhock.  The plant is a shrubby perennial that grows from about 1 to 3 feet tall and wide, depending on its location.  The leaves are gray, fuzzy and roundish with scalloped edges, much like those of a hollyhock.
 
Apricot Globe Mallow with Joshua Trees, Joshua Tree National Park

This globe mallow is found across the desert southwest on dry, rocky slopes as well as sandy washes.  Its range extends across the Mojave and Colorado (Sonoran) deserts of California, into Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Mexico.  Last year, we found a spectacular showing of Apricot Globe Mallow in Joshua Tree National Park as well as Mojave National Preserve and the higher elevations around Death Valley. 


The Apricot Globe Mallow is reputed to be the most drought-tolerant of all the mallows.  The plants provide a source of browse for Bighorn Sheep (Ovis Canadensis) and the flowers are an excellent source of nectar for native bees and other pollinators, such as butterflies and hummingbirds.

Along a desert wash, Joshua Tree National Park

Apricot Globe Mallow is typically associated with creosote bush scrub and desert chaparral plant communities, though it can also be found in pinyon-juniper woodlands, below about 4,000 feet in elevation.


These plants are also great candidates for a garden of California native plants in the hottest and driest parts of the state (and I would include the San Joaquin Valley in that category!)  The photo below was taken in the native plant garden at Kern National Wildlife Refuge in early April.  Absolutely stunning!

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