In message , mark
writes
My hollyhocks have just started blooming.
On one, it has very dark red flowers, almost black. Yet on the same stem and
next to the 'black' flowers are pale pink blooms.
Is this a common phenomena or have I stumbled upon a get rich quick variant?

mark

"Black" hollyhocks (f. nigra) are reasonably well known. What you
probably have is a sectoral chimaera - the cell ancestral to part of the
plant mutated, disabling the gene responsible for pigment production,
resulting in paler blooms.

Even if you could propagate hollyhocks vegetatively, sectoral chimaeras
are unstable, as I found when trying to propagate a variegated sport of
Lavatera 'Barnsley'. They don't come true from seed - if you collected
seed you'd get a black-flowered and pink-flowered plants, but not one
with mixed flowers.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley