Alcea the official seal ("mon") of the Tokugawa shogunate in Japan, and through this influence has maintained importance in modern Japanese culture. For example, it inspired the name and symbol of Mito HollyHock, a professional soccer club in a city formerly led by the Tokugawa family. The Aoi Matsuri (Hollyhock Festival) is one of the three main festivals of the city of Kyoto. During the Victorian era, the hollyhock symbolized both ambition and fecundity in the language of flowers. Alcea Alcea is a genus of about 60 species of flowering plants in the mallow family Malvaceae, commonly known as the hollyhocks.
Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary including oil and gas extraction, anchoring on the reefs, and harvesting fish, corals and other invertebrates. With passage of the Marine Research and Sanctuaries Act in 1972, researchers began discussing the Flower Garden Banks as a candidate for designation as a National Marine Sanctuary. During the 1980s, recreational divers were also discovering the Flower Garden Banks. The Houston Underwater Club led a movement to have the banks officially designated as sanctuaries by submitting a formal letter of nomination in 1979. Due to a number of issues, eleven years passed before the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary was officially established.