Hollyhock

Alcea rosea, the hollyhock or common hollyhock, is a tall biennial or short-lived perennial herb in the family Malvaceae, long cultivated as a cottage-garden ornamental and thought to have originated in southwestern China, with cultivation spread through the Middle East to Europe by the medieval period. Plants produce a stout taproot and a basal rosette of leaves in the first year, then send up in the second year a single (or several) unbranched erect flowering stem 1.5-3 m tall, the whole plant clothed in stiff stellate hairs. The leaves are alternate, palmately 5-7-lobed with rounded crenate to coarsely toothed lobes, 10-20 cm across, long-petioled, and roughly hairy. The inflorescence is a long terminal raceme of large showy flowers borne in the upper leaf axils. Each flower is 5-10 cm across, with a small epicalyx of 6-7 narrow lobes, a five-lobed calyx, and five broad obovate petals fused at the base around a central staminal column typical of the Malvaceae, the stamens producing many anthers along its length. Petal colours range across cultivars from white, cream, and pale yellow through pink, red, deep maroon, and almost black. The fruit is a flat ring of 15-25 single-seeded indehiscent mericarps surrounding the persistent style base.