Jute is a long, soft, shiny vegetable fibre that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from plants in the genus Corchorus

Corchorus

Corchorus is a genus of about 40-100 species of flowering plants in the family Malvaceae, native to tropical and subtropical regions throughout the world....

, which has been classified in the family Tiliaceae

Tiliaceae

Tiliaceae is a botanical name for a family of flowering plants. Such a family is not part of APG II, but it is found all through the botanical literature and remains prominently listed by nomenclatural databases such as IPNI....

, or more recently in Malvaceae

Malvaceae

Malvaceae, or the mallow family, is a family of flowering plants containing over 200 genera with close to 2,300 species. Judd & al. Well known members of this family include okra, jute and cacao...

.

Jute is one of the most affordable natural fibres and is second only to cotton

Cotton

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

 in amount produced and variety of uses of vegetable fibres. Jute fibres are composed primarily of the plant materials cellulose

Cellulose

Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to over ten thousand β linked D-glucose units....

 (major component of plant fibre) and lignin

Lignin

Lignin or lignen is a complex chemical compound most commonly derived from wood, and an integral part of the secondary cell walls of plants and some algae. The term was introduced in 1819 by de Candolle and is derived from the Latin word lignum, meaning wood...

 (major components of wood fibre).