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Superstition mallow – July 18, 2025

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• July 18, 2025
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I plan to post occasionally about arid-adapted species I particularly love, and I have to start with superstition mallow (Abutilon palmeri – https://www.smgrowers.com/products/plants/plantdisplay.asp?plant_id=3968 ). Native to the Sonoran desert in Arizona, southern California, and northwestern Mexico, this common name refers to the Superstition Mountains (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition_Mountains ) in south-central Arizona. It is also called Indian mallow and Palmer’s mallow.

When I bought my house in January 2022, it had seen better days. The back yard was a barren, rock-filled, dogscape. As in — a field of dog doo. The former owner had, apparently, been a first responder who worked long shifts and left his dog along a lot. He didn’t clean it up before the keys were handed over, and I was just too tired of the whole process to care. One of the key reasons I bought the place was two huge native trees — a palo brea and a palo verde. But otherwise there wasn’t much living out there. After the rain in January I let the weeds grow just to have some green and host bugs for my cat to chase. I was trying to sort out all the rocks by size. It was a lot of work and not very exciting. One morning I went out to sort rocks, and was thrilled to see a seedling with one heart-shaped, fuzzy leaf peeking out from an area I hadn’t started on.

Superstition mallow leaf, 2025

A friend told me it was a mallow, and I was skeptical. I love mallows, the whole sprawling family. In the Arab mediterranean world common mallow – khobeizeh (خبيزىة) – is one of the great signs of spring, both for its cheerful lavender flower and its delicious leaves. I had already bought a common southwestern native, globemallow (Spheralcea ambigua — https://apps.cals.arizona.edu/arboretum/taxon.aspx?id=898 ), and this thing didn’t look like a mallow to me!

Globemallow (Spheralcea ambigua), 2025

Well, look how wrong you can be.

Superstition mallow passes the best water-conscious gardening rule there is: it volunteered in my space and thrived without any encouragement at all. I was curious how it would turn out, and – wow.

Superstition mallow, early spring, 2025.

In the photo above that original superstition mallow is just over three years old. Notice her offspring climbing up the fence behind the birdbath, and peeking up behind the blue mist on the right. She is covered with seed capsules from last season. I usually cut these back before she blooms in spring and scatter the seeds along bikeways and waste areas.

Spring 2024

One of the best things about mallows in general is that the pollinators love them. Bees get into Abutilon and the globemallow and roll around in their cup-shaped blossoms. The hummingbirds seem to like the Abutilon better because it’s taller, more accessible — ? Anyway they can hover above my cat instead of at eye-level.

Spring 2025

Here are youngsters mixed in with pink globemallow and Salvia coccinea “pink summer jewel,” also Sonoran natives.

Recently I read a lovely post on Gardenista about the revival/remodel of a Cliff May landscape on Coronado Island, and I was surprised to see superstition mallow incorporated as a pathway border – so lovely (https://www.gardenista.com/posts/cliff-may-project-coronado-orca/ ). Used with muted grey pavers and weathered wood its grayed-green velvety leaves are appropriately soft: scroll down to the last image in the article to see our heroine in this island context. I was so encouraged by seeing it in this context I took seedlings to my Mom and a friend in Santa Barbara.

And then I found out that the genus “Abutilon” was named Abu Tilon ( أبو طيلون) ) by the great Muslim philosopher-scientist-physician Ibn Sina, and Latinized as Abutilon in the 18^th century! So I named this distinguished lady Umm Abu Tilon — Mother of all the superstition mallows in my garden.