Alcea "Alcea" species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including "Bucculatrix quadrigemina" and "Vanessa cardui", the painted lady. The mallow flea beetle ("Podagrica fuscicornis") is a pest that makes tiny holes in the leaves. Cutworms, aphids, and capsid bugs use the plant as a food source in hotter and drier conditions. A number of weevils use "A. rosea" as their host plant, including "Rhopalapion longirostre", "Alocentron curvirostre", and "Aspidapion validum". The plants are also susceptible to the pathogenic fungus "Puccinia malvacearum", the hollyhock rust. A hollyhock flower, known in Japan as , was incorporated into
Armatimonas rosea width and 2.4–3.2 µm in length. Neither spores nor flagella were observed. When investigated in R2A media, cultures of "A. rosea" were observed to be aerobic and chemoheterotrophic with no evidence of growth under anaerobic conditions. It is negative for the following tests: nitrate respiration, fermentative growth, catalase, and cytochrome oxidase. Armatimonas rosea Armatimonas rosea is a Gram-negative bacterium and also the first species to be characterized within the phylum Armatimonadetes. The Armatimonadetes were previously known as candidate phylum OP10. OP10 was composed solely of environmental 16S rRNA gene clone sequences prior to "A. rosea's" discovery. "A. rosea" was originally