Alcea rugosa

Alcea rugosa Alef. (former USSR) – An exceptional and probably ephemeral escape from cultivation. Recorded in 2010 in a road verge of a motorway near Brugge (two specimens, at some distance from each other). Possibly overlooked and confused with Alcea rosea s.l. (especially A. ficifolia).

Alcea rugosa much looks like A. ficifolia. Both usually have deeply lobed leaves and yellowish corollas. However, Alcea rugosa is a perfectly fertile species with smaller mericarps (mericarps possibly not always produced or larger in A. ficifolia), fewer, more widely spaced, pure yellow corollas that turn greenish-blue on drying (vs. inflorescence densely flowered with creamy to yellowish corollas that hardly change in colour on drying), etc.

Alcea rugosa, Brugge, road verge, August 2010, F. VerlooveAlcea rugosa, Brugge, road verge, August 2010, F. Verloove

Scratchpads developed and conceived by (alphabetical): Ed Baker, Katherine Bouton Alice Heaton Dimitris Koureas, Laurence Livermore, Dave Roberts, Simon Rycroft, Ben Scott, Vince Smith