It contains several species of flowering plants known generally as checkerblooms or checkermallows, or prairie mallows in the United Kingdom.

In mid- to late summer the clumps of toothed basal leaves produce erect flowering stems, with 5-petalled mallow-type flowers in terminal racemes, in shades of pink, white and purple.

Further, evolution rates within annual Sidalcea lineages appear to be faster than those of perennial lineages, at least when examining nuclear ribosomal DNA (internal and external transcribed spacer regions).

[1][2] Selected species: (A = annual, P = perennial[1]) Garden cultivars are hybrids between S. candida and S. malviflora.

The perennial cultivars "Elsie Heugh",[5] 'Oberon'[6] and "William Smith"[7] have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.