Why Do Cotton Plants Have Two Colors of Blooms?

Sea Island Cotton

• Closely related to Gossypium hirsutum is Gossypium barbadense, a South American native plant sometimes known as sea island cotton. It is also produced for the textiles that are spun from its fibers. As with upland cotton, sea island cotton produces yellow flowers. Sea island cotton flowers are distinctive because they are sometimes tinged with purple or have purple spots at the base. As with upland cotton, newly opened flowers may be differently colored from older blooms.

Flower Appearance

• Most members of the Malvaceae, or mallow, family have similar, five-petaled flowers that resemble those of the common garden hollyhock. Petal colors can range from shades of cream and yellow to pink, red, purple and nearly black. With some mallows, the petals are shorter than the prominent central staminal column. This is not the case with Gossypium, which has petals longer than the staminal column.

Cotton Rose

• Sometimes common names cause confusion. The cotton flower is the blossom of any member of the Gossypium genus. Cotton rose is the common name of the flower of a popular southern ornamental plant, Hibiscus mutabilis. It is also sometimes called "Confederate rose." Hibiscus mutabilis is another member of the large mallow family. Blooming in late summer, its round buds open to white flowers that age quickly to pink and eventually darker red. As with Gossypium hirsutum, new and old flowers give the plant the appearance of having blossoms of distinctly different colors on the same plant.

Considerations

• Cotton plants sometimes sport two colors of flowers, but are almost never grown as ornamental specimens. Cotton rose acquired its common name from the fact that its buds look a little like the fat "bolls" or seedcases of the Gossypium plant. It is only grown as an ornamental. If you see a "cotton plant" with blossoms of two different colors growing in a garden, it is most likely Hibiscus mutabilis.