the.com/hollyhock
the cottage giant that towers eight feet while pretending to be a humble garden afterthought.
means A tall, old-fashioned garden flower (Alcea rosea) that sends up a single spire studded with broad, papery blooms in pinks, reds, and whites.
from From Old English 'holihoc,' a marriage of 'holi' (holy) and 'hoc' (mallow), the family this plant belongs to. The 'holy' part is debated — one popular tale ties it to the plant being brought back from the Holy Land during the Crusades, though that may be more legend than fact. What's solid is that 'hock' is the genuinely old English word for a mallow, so the name literally means something like 'holy mallow.'
- medieval name
- holy + hock, meaning marsh mallow plant
- outhouse marker
- once planted to discreetly signal the privy
- edible flowers
- petals brew tea and tint it blue
- biennial bloomer
- spends year one as leaves, year two soaring
- bee magnet
- pollinators dive headfirst into its open trumpets
hollyhock rust disease — fungal disease caused by puccinia malvacearum that devastated european gardens in the 1870s
alcea rosea 'nigra' — nearly black hollyhock variety bred in turkey, prized by gardeners since the 1600s