Mallows

Get the good stuff in store at Marshalls today.

Cotton, from Arabic qutun, is a soft, fluffy, staple fiber that grows in a bowl or protective case around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus Gossypium in the mallow family Malvaceae.

The fiber is almost pure cellulose and may contain minor percentages of waxes, fats, pectins, and water.

Under natural conditions, cotton bowls facilitate the dispersal of the seeds.

But they, the sabdariffa definitely comes, um, comes to us from Africa, but there are other species as well.

And all of them, because they're a part of the Malvaceae family, have that mucilage quality when fresh, um, in the flowers and in the leaves.

And that is, I think, one of the most prized parts of that plant in, in the Caribbean.

I've seen people, um, you know, take the flowers and the, and the leaves and, like, you know, mash it up to get that mucilage and use it to, like, wash their hair.

Yeah

... you see that calyx, it's that very specific Hibiscus sabdariffa.

But like I mentioned earlier, all of them being part of that Malvaceae family have that mucilage.

Um, a lot of them have the same antimicrobial, um, impacts as well, um, anti-inflammation.

And the girls walking around discussing the plants were very taken by the hibiscus.

And of course, by its relative in the same family, in the family Malvaceae, the mallow family, the marshmallow, Althea officinalis, which was still bright flowering where the hollyhocks have reached that cyclops stage where they just have one flower at the very head.

These were still stems of flower and they have that lovely gap between their petals.

They're not quite a perfect cup like the hollyhock.

And it's not for everything.

It comes from the hibiscus tree, okay? And it, uh, the, the plant is in the Malvaceae family, and these are, like, what you would refer to as beach hibiscus.

It's Hibiscus tiliaceus, basically.

T-I-L-I-A-C-E-U-S. Um, it's basically sea hibiscus.