MALACOTHAMNUS. California, both Alta and Baja. Native shrubs of the mallow family, interesting for both foliage and flowers. Several make sizeable thickets from underground stems and roots. Individual shoots are usually erect and well branched. The leaves, like those of so many mallows, are usually lobed and more or less maple-like in outline. Both leaves and stems may be hairy, giving the plants a pleasant greyish cast. Five petalled flowers of the typical mallow form, with central tubes and brushes of stamens, are presented in clusters, mostly in summer. Common colors are white and pink. These are tough, adaptable plants, especially useful on banks and other exposed sites. Their chief drawback is a tendency to pop up uninvited in nearby plantings (they are easily rogued out). Sun, most soils, moderate to occasional watering. Hardiness varies.

fasciculatus ‘Casitas’. This is a plant I encounted near Lake Casitas, in Ventura County, making ghostly grey puffs in the chaparral. It grows strongly erect, with grey-hairy stems and sharply lobed grey leaves up to 4" long. In late summer and fall, long stalks with well-separated bud clusters extend from the shoot tips. Each bud unfolds into a cupped, upfacing 1-1½" blossom of exquisite silvery pink. Probably hardy to 15^oF or less.

fremontii. A widely ranging, highly variable plant. The current unnamed selection is bushy and upright-oval in form, each main shoot growing 4-6' high and 3-4' broad. Before long, new shoots appear from the ground, and eventually a broad colony is formed. The individual branches are rather slender and arching, with grey-felted 2-3" leaves. From July to October it carries loose wands of beautiful cupped, upfacing, silvery pink flowers, each about 1½" broad, at the branch tips. Hardy to 10^oF or less, resprouting easily after damage to the tops.