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
Rhodopetala rosea Rhodopetala rosea Rhodopetala rosea, common name the pink limpet, is a species of sea snail or true limpet, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Acmaeidae, one of the families of true limpets. It represents the only member of the genus "Rhodopetala" and of its subfamily, Rhodopetaleinae. It is native to the Kuril, Aleutian, and Kodiac Islands. Its diet consists of coralline and laminarian algae. They extend from the Triassic era to the recent. Taxonomic characteristics of this species have been debated. In 1981, following the first examination of the soft body parts of a specimen (previous classifications had relied