Little-known plant offers big-time promise. While the seashore mallow might be handy for a quick snack, the sturdy plant has provided Gallagher food for thought in addressing a smorgasbord of environmental problems, from global warming to the disappearance of coastal farmland.
Gallagher, a marine biosciences professor, says the seeds are a promising source of biodiesel, with an oil composition similar to that of soybeans and cottonseed.
Unlike soybeans and corn, which require annual plantings to feed the growing appetite for biofuels, the pink-flowered seashore mallow is both a perennial and a halophyte, or salt-tolerant plant, that grows in areas where other crops can't.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/10/AR2007071000247.html
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