[smmtc.org] Blossom Info, Etymology: If rainfall is sparse the plant may not bloom, and an additional bloom is possible if there is a late rain. After the blooms are gone, this plant will die back to the ground. Interesting note about the blooms - they last less than a day before shriveling up. When you see this bloom, keep that in mind and take a moment to appreciate the ephemeral beauty of flowers! Herbaceous (stems are green and flexible) perennial grows up to 80 cm tall. Leaves: deeply lobed, with long stalks (petioles); hirsute (hairy) below, stellate (star like) above. Flowers: in many - flowered racemes (short equal stalks along a central stem), blooms are pink to lilac, often with white veins. I was looking thru my photos and noticed that some plants have Stamens and some do not. Milt's book says Male and Female plants are an identifying trait and of course another book states that the flower is bisexual (having both male and female parts) and that the flower actually aborts the stamens of the upper flowers. Name Origin: Sidal'cea: a combination of two related genera in the Mallow family, Sida and Alcea, which were also two Greek names for mallow (ref. genus Sidalcea) sparsifo'lia/sparsifo'lium: sparsely-leaved Sidalcea malviflora (de Candolle) A. Gray subsp. sparsifolia C. L. Hitchcock, Perenn. Sp. Sidalcea, 32. 1957 (as malvaeflora); S. malviflora var. hirsuta C. L. (link added by Mary Ann Machi)