By Ricky Linex

Author

Ricky Linex

Ricky Linex retired in 2021 as a wildlife biologist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service and now works as a range and wildlife consultant.

Indian Mallow

Gold on the prairie

Plants add value to the land benefiting landowners and the animals they manage. This value might be in preventing soil erosion, providing forage for browsing animals, furnishing flowers utilized by pollinators or as a great seed producers for seed-eating songbirds and gamebirds including bobwhite quail and mourning dove. When a single plant can be the producer of soil stability, forage, flowers and seeds, it truly is like finding gold on the prairie. Indian mallow, Abutilon fruticosum, also known as Texas Indian mallow, sweet Indian mallow and Pelotazo, is certainly a desirable native forb. Indian mallow grows in the western two-thirds of Texas from the Blackland Prairies westward.

Occasionally single-stemmed but more often multi-stemmed, Indian mallow, is a native, warm season, perennial forb growing from a woody taproot. While it is sparsely branched, growth is erect, reaching 2 to 3 feet in height, though rarely to 6 feet. Leaves are velvety smooth to the touch, alternate in growth along the stems, showing a heart-shaped notch, and grayish to pale green, covered with minute white star-shaped hairs, easily seen under magnification. The leaves are slightly keeled along mid vein, palmately nerved, irregularly toothed, heart-shaped with a pointed tip, with lower leaves up to 4 inches long while upper leaves run smaller, being up to 1 inch in length. Flowers are usually solitary on branchlets from leaf axils, 3/4-inch to 1-inch across, five petals, pale orange-yellow. Fruit is a rounded capsule about 1/2-inch high with five to nine carpels and two or more seeds in each carpel. Imagine the segments of a peeled orange—as each orange slice is the same as a carpel.

Indian mallow is occasionally grazed by cattle but is readily eaten by sheep, goats and deer. Long-term over utilization of forage by livestock or browsing wildlife can eliminate Indian mallow from pastures. Crude protein averages 12 to 14 percent during the growing season but has been measured at 19 percent in midsummer following rains; energy values are low. Young foliage is utilized as larval plant food for several species of skipper butterflies.

Seeds mature in mid to late summer with some of the seeds held in the capsules until dislodged by wind or animals. Mature seeds are prone to bug damage while still in the capsule. Not only are the seeds readily eaten by birds, several species of bugs feast upon the seeds. Seeds are eaten by dove, quail and songbirds. Indian mallow handles drought well and is an excellent choice for xeriscaping providing good color in the foliage and flowers.

In heavily grazed pastures Indian mallow will often be seen growing only adjacent to woody cover or within prickly pear patches. Proper grazing use by livestock and maintenance of deer numbers at manageable numbers provides long term survival of this desirable plant. The pale gray-green foliage and orange-yellow flowers are easy to spot during the summer months making its presence easy to determine. Following wildfire or prescribed burning Indian mallow responds quickly and becomes re-established from older plants and from seed. Indian mallow is very tolerant of fire and will provide early growth providing protection to the soil from erosion even while black ash is still upon the soil surface.

Contact Ricky Linex via email: rlinex@charter.net