Alcea rosea L.
hollyhock
Biennial to perennial up to 2-(3) m high, with a single main stem. Stems sparsely to densely clothed in stellate hairs and hispid when young, becoming ± glabrous or with scattered deflexed hairs when mature. Lvs moderately to densely clothed in stellate hairs, becoming ± glabrous above when mature, suborbicular, cordate or sagittate at base, not lobed or shallowly to moderately 3-7-lobed to < ⅓ radius particularly in stem lvs, crenate or serrate, c. 2-20 cm diam.; petioles 2- c. 30 cm long; stipules triangular, 1-3-toothed, 6-10 mm long. Fls axillary, usually solitary, rarely in clusters of 2-3; fruiting pedicels 1-5-(20) cm long; epicalyx segments 6, narrow-triangular, united for lower ?-1/2, c. 1/2-3/4 as long as calyx at flowering, usually recurved at fruiting; calyx campanulate; calyx teeth narrow- or ovate-triangular, acute, densely clothed in stellate hairs, ± connivent at fruiting; petals white, light to dark pink, deep crimson or purple, sometimes darker at base, 30-60 mm long. Mericarps numerous in each fr., with appressed hairs on the narrowly furrowed back; edges winged.
S.: Nelson City, Canterbury Plains, C. Otago.
Origin uncertain 1958
Established locally in dry waste places.
FL Jan-Feb.
A long history of cultivation makes the origin of A. rosea uncertain; Webb, D. A., in Fl. Europ. 2 (1968), noted that A. rosea is "... not known anywhere as an indigenous plant; probably a hybrid of A. setosa and A. pallida or with an Asiatic sp..."
