There are two clumps of hollyhocks in front of the home, one single-petaled and one heavy-petaled, two meters high, with thick stems and pink colors. Although it is a biennial herb, for many years they have been annual, open in early summer, very punctual and will decorate my doorstep for a long time.
Back from my hometown, there are many hollyhocks open along the way, red, pink, white, black and purple, I always walk all the way and shoot all the way. Look below at their many colors.
Hollyhock, a marshmallow plant in the mallow family, is also called Dragon Boat Flower, Yizhang Red, etc., but it is called "light flower" in our place. It has a long flowering period, and there is a saying that "hollyhocks are not shy to bloom and keep blooming until autumn".
Among these hollyhocks, except for the one in front of my house, I have not seen the one with heavy petals, as it is said in the "Flower Mirror": there are many single-petaled people, such as qianye, five hearts, shears, saws, although there are rare ones. But no matter what, the single petal is elegant, the double petal is gorgeous, splendid, not inferior to peony peony, very ornamental.
Let's take a look at how they are structured.
corolla
Among the crowds, the hollyhock flower crown is considered large, and it can reach more than ten centimeters after unfolding. The single-petal variety is generally 5 petals, arranged in a spiral, inverted ovate triangle, dark at the top, white claws on the lower part, and hairs on both sides of the claw. The edges of the petals are indented of various sizes, forming a wavy lace. The texture of the petals is very similar to wrinkled paper, and it has a textured feeling to the touch.
I split two of the double-petal varieties, one with 23 petals and one with 22 petals, with more missing edges and more variation.
stamen
The base of the stamens filament of the single-petal variety unites into a cylinder, the monomeric stamen, which is placed on the peduncle of the middle pistil. The yellow filigree cylinders exposed at the top are arranged on the stamens, and the anthers are scattered everywhere, which is uncomfortable to stick to the hand. Smell it, there is no aroma, but there is a faint bitterness.
Another very bad experience is that the openness of its corolla and the appearance of the single stamens attract many tiny insects to be busy in the flowers and stamens, bringing a lot of beautiful troubles to observation.
In double-petaled varieties, some stamens are petalized, and the stamens are also divided into several bundles, that is, multi-body stamens, both of which are 5 bunches, evenly hidden in the petals.
I heard that the stamens of hollyhock can be divided into single-petal type, compound valve type, thin-ball type, dense ball type, crown type and hydrangea type, and my double-petal type seems to belong to the crown type according to the characteristics.
pistil
In most flowers I don't see its pistils, except in one pink flower I see several white filamentous pistils sticking out of the stamens pillars and opening up like petals. It is said that after the hollyhock flowers bloom, the stamens first release anthers, and the next day the pistils penetrate through the stamens column, growing a filamentous stigma, and the stamens do not mature at the same time, which can avoid self-pollination. Only it knows best what the truth is.
In order to see its pistils clearly, I used a sharp knife to first scrape off the stamens on the stamens column, and then carefully cut the stamens pillars, and sure enough, I saw its pistils full of filament, and the ovary that had been initially developed was connected underneath, like a small millstone.
If it continues to develop, it will become like this, and with a hard break, it will see its round winged fruit pieces, which will be seen more clearly after maturity.
I also cut the buds of the heavy petals, and after cutting the stamens, I saw that some of its fruits were like millstones, and some were not, and I couldn't find anything to describe for a while. Let's put it this way, it's like when the garlic moss is about to grow into small garlic after removing the "garlic cap". It seems that this will have to wait until it grows up.
bracts and sepals
When I first saw its calyx, I was surprised, how can it still have double sepals? They are still clinging together, what is the use of this? Something went wrong when growing, deformed? Later, I checked the information and learned that the outer layer was its bracts, which were said to be cup-shaped, which I didn't see, but I felt like a disc. The bracts are green, the lobes are ovate-lanceolate, densely covered with star-like coarse hairs, the base is synphytic, I count a lot of flowers, mostly 6 or 7 lobes, rarely 5 lobes and 8 lobes, which is in line with the general situation.
Further inside is its real sepal. The sepals are green, bell-shaped, symbiotic at the base, mostly 5-lobed, but also 6-lobed, and the lobes are ovate triangular, densely covered with star-like coarse hairs like bracts, although the sepals are longer than the bracts.
Carefully observed, I found that hollyhocks are really everywhere, not at all picky and thin in the selection of sites, whether it is a corner or a roadside, always at ease with encounters, selflessly blooming huge and gorgeous flowers, fully blooming their own light, dressing up our lives. Such a large, varied, beautiful, and people-friendly flower is really rare, and from now on, in my heart, it is no longer an ordinary grass flower, but a symbol of tenacity and tenacity.