- This article is about the flower. For the J. League
The or is the top division of and is the top professional association football league in Japan. It is one of the most successful leagues in Asian club football and the only league given top class 'A' ranking by the AFC. Currently, J. League Division 1 is the first level of the Japanese...
team, see Mito Hollyhockis a Japanese professional football club, currently playing in the J. League Division 2. The team's hometown is located in Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture....
Alcea (
Ál-ce-aSyllable stress of botanical names varies with the language spoken by the person using the botanical name. In English-speaking countries the Botanical Latin places syllable stress for botanical names derived from ancient Greek and Latin broadly according to two systems, either the Reformed...
), commonly known as
hollyhocks, is a genus of about 60 species of
flowering plantThe flowering plants , also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants. Angiosperms are seed-producing plants like the gymnosperms and can be distinguished from the gymnosperms by a series of synapomorphies...
s in the mallow family
MalvaceaeMalvaceae, or the mallow family, is a family of flowering plants containing over 200 genera with close to 2,300 species. Judd & al. Well known members of this family include okra, jute and cacao...
. Most species are native to southwest and central
AsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, although a few are native to southeast
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
or
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
. They are
biennialA biennial plant is a flowering plant that takes two years to complete its biological lifecycle. In the first year the plant grows leaves, stems, and roots , then it enters a period of dormancy over the colder months. Usually the stem remains very short and the leaves are low to the ground, forming...
or short-lived perennial plants growing to 3.5 m (11.48 ft) tall, with broad, rounded, palmately lobed
leavesA leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....
and numerous
flowerA flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...
s (pink or yellow in the wild species) on the erect central stem.
Alcea species are used as food plants by the
larvaA larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...
e of some
LepidopteraLepidoptera is a large order of insects that includes moths and butterflies . It is one of the most widespread and widely recognizable insect orders in the world, encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies, skipper butterflies, and moth-butterflies...
species including
Bucculatrix quadrigemina and the
Painted LadyVanessa cardui is a well-known colourful butterfly, known as the Painted Lady, or in North America as the Cosmopolitan. This butterfly has a strange pattern of flying in a sort of screw shape.-Distribution:...
(
Vanessa cardui).
Species
There are about 60 species of Alcea, including:
- Alcea biennis
Alcea biennis ' is a species of Alcea in the Malvaceae family of mallows. It is related to the well-known Hibiscus rosa-sinensis....
- Alcea heldreichii
- Alcea lavateriflora
- Alcea pallida
- Alcea rosea
Alcea rosea is an ornamental plant in the Malvaceae family....
—Common Hollyhock
- Alcea rugosa
- Alcea setosa—Bristly Hollyhock
- Alcea striata
- Alcea sulphurea
Uses
Hollyhocks are popular
gardenA garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form today is known as a residential garden, but the term garden has...
ornamental plantOrnamental plants are plants that are grown for decorative purposes in gardens and landscape design projects, as house plants, for cut flowers and specimen display...
s,
cultivarA cultivar'Cultivar has two meanings as explained under Formal definition. When used in reference to a taxon, the word does not apply to an individual plant but to all those plants sharing the unique characteristics that define the cultivar. is a plant or group of plants selected for desirable...
s selected, particularly from
A. rosea. The flowers have been selected for variations in colour, with dark purple, red and white-flowered plants available in addition to the colours found in wild plants.
Hollyhocks are very drought resistant, and do well in full sun locations that might be too hot or dry for other plants. They produce large, flat coin-shaped seeds (1/2" diameter) that seem to grow easily wherever they drop. While an individual plant might only live a handful of years, by that time chances are good it will leave plenty of descendants. They have very long taproots which make transplanting difficult.
Japan
The flower, known in Japan as , was incorporated into the official seal (
mon) of the
Tokugawa ShogunateThe Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...
in Japan, and through this influence has maintained importance in modern Japanese culture. For example, it has become the name and symbol of a
professional soccer clubis a Japanese professional football club, currently playing in the J. League Division 2. The team's hometown is located in Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture....
located in a city formerly led by the
Tokugawa familyThe was a powerful daimyo family of Japan. They nominally descended from Emperor Seiwa and were a branch of the Minamoto clan by the Nitta clan. However, the early history of this clan remains a mystery.-History:...
. The
Aoi MatsuriThe , or "Hollyhock Festival," is one of the three main annual festivals held in Kyoto, Japan, the other two being the Festival of the Ages and the Gion Festival. It is a festival of the two Kamo shrines in the north of the city, Shimogamo Shrine and Kamigamo Shrine...
(Hollyhock festival) is one of the three main festivals of the city of
Kyotois a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...
. In addition, in the
mangaManga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
series
Lone Wolf and Cubis a manga created by writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima. First published in 1970, the story was adapted into six films starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, four plays, a television series starring Yorozuya Kinnosuke, and is widely recognized as an important and influential work.Lone Wolf and Cub...
the seal is worn by Ogami Itto, the protagonist of the series, whilst he is in service to the
shogunA was one of the hereditary military dictators of Japan from 1192 to 1867. In this period, the shoguns, or their shikken regents , were the de facto rulers of Japan though they were nominally appointed by the emperor...
.
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