Alcea rosea
species of plant
Alcea rosea, the common hollyhock, is an ornamental dicot flowering plant in the family Malvaceae. It was imported into Europe from southwestern China during, or possibly before, the 15th century. William Turner, a herbalist of the time, gave it the name "holyoke" from which the English name derives.
Description
Alcea rosea is a 2.4 metres (8 feet) tall plant with large flowers around 13 centimetres (5 in) in diameter. Its leaves are large and heart-shaped.
Ecology
The flowers attract hummingbirds in the Americas, and butterflies.
Pests and diseases
The leaves are vulnerable to rust, leaf spot and anthracnose. Pest problems include Japanese beetle and spider mites; though damage to the leaves can be extensive, the flowers are rarely affected. In contrast, females of the hollyhock weevil (Rhopalapion longirostre) bore holes into the flower calyx of the plants in which they lay their eggs. The larvae that hatch then feed upon the developing seeds, leaving each resulting pod full of desiccated husks of the seeds.
“Alcea rosea” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Alcea, rosea and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Alcea rosea” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Alcea, rosea and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q27682. The Library of Congress control number is sh2007001036. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alcea rosea” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.