Hollyhock
Alcea rosea
Native to Europe and Asia, Hollyhock grows as biennial, perennial, or annual depending on growing conditions and forms abundant, large flowers in early summer.
In a 1782 Garden Book entry Thomas Jefferson composed a chart of "a Calendar of the bloom of flowers" that showed Hollyhocks flowering at Monticello from mid-June through July. Hollyhocks are currently naturalized at Monticello in the Vegetable Garden and are possibly descendants of those plants Jefferson observed in 1782.
In Bloom at Monticello is made possible by support from The Richard D. and Carolyn W. Jacques Foundation.