A Tale of Two Hollyhocks: One Took a Wagon, One Waited for Fire
Here is the problem with common names: plants are apparently allowed to share them with no concern for the confusion they cause.
Case in point: hollyhock.
When I found a tall stalk of pink flowers near a ranch in the Tetons, I assumed it was the classic garden hollyhock—the towering flower that has been hanging around old houses and barns for generations.
But the Rocky Mountains have their own native wild hollyhock.
The two plants are related. They look similar. They can even grow in the same general area. But one traveled west with settlers, while the other can spend generations underground waiting for fire.
That is a pretty significant difference.
Contestant One: The Garden Escapee
Garden hollyhock
Alcea rosea
This is the hollyhock most of us recognize: enormous flowers stacked up a stalk that can grow taller than the person standing next to it.
Garden hollyhocks come in white, yellow, peach, pink, red, purple and shades so dark they are sold as black. Some have simple five-petaled flowers. Others look like they dressed for a very fancy party and forgot when to stop adding ruffles.
Despite its ability to grow along roadsides and outside old fences, this hollyhock is not native to North America. It is an ancient cultivated plant associated with Türkiye, although people have grown and altered it for so long that its precise wild origin is difficult to untangle.
How did it reach the West?
It hitched a ride.
Hollyhock seeds are small, flat and easy to save. Spanish colonists carried Old World garden plants north through Mexico into New Mexico. Later emigrants, pioneers, homesteaders and ranching families brought familiar flower seeds west from established American gardens.
Hollyhocks were planted beside houses, barns, vegetable gardens and fence lines. Then they did what hollyhocks do best: dropped a ridiculous number of seeds and came back without being invited.
That means a patch near an abandoned ranch could be descended from an earlier garden. It is not proof by itself, but it is a good reason to start looking for foundations, irrigation ditches, old fruit trees or pieces of fence.
Sometimes a flower is also a clue.
Contestant Two: The Mountain Sleeper
Streambank wild hollyhock
Iliamna rivularis
This hollyhock is actually native to the West.
It grows in Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, as well as portions of western Canada. It has even been documented inside Grand Teton National Park.
Instead of enormous ruffled flowers packed against one towering stalk, wild hollyhock usually has smaller pink flowers growing in looser clusters. Its leaves are more sharply lobed and often look a little like maple leaves.
It grows along streambanks, in mountain meadows, open forests, moist draws, aspen groves and disturbed ground. It can occur at elevations approaching 11,500 feet.
But its real trick happens underground.
The Plant That Can Sleep for Centuries
Wild hollyhock seeds have extremely hard coats. They can remain buried in the soil for decades—and possibly several hundred years—without producing a visible plant.
Then fire comes through.
Heat and soil disturbance help break the seeds’ dormancy. Sunlight reaches the ground again, and pink wild hollyhocks can suddenly appear where no one remembers seeing them before.
For a few years, they take advantage of the open space and put on a show. They grow quickly, flower heavily and deposit another generation of seeds into the soil.
Then the forest begins closing around them. Shrubs and trees return, shade deepens and the hollyhocks disappear.
But they have not necessarily left.
They are back underground, waiting for the next opening.
Frankly, it is
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