RELATION OF PARALLELISM TO CLASSIFICATION. 31 



haps but a natural sport. "Thousands of jjlants were grown from tlic seed, and but 

 very few reverted to the broad-leaf type." ' 



In a later j^araj^rapli of the discussion of (rossypiwn schottii still 

 another interi)retation of the okra-leaved variations is proposed: 



The bulk of the Upland American stock of present-day cultivation might be described, 

 and accurately so, as consisting of forms of G. mcxicanum. \Vc read Ihaf repeated 

 fresh supplies of seed have been procured direct from Mexico. It would thus be no 

 great stretch of imagination to assume the possibility of hybridization of the cultivated 

 stock of Mexico with the Yucatan G. schottii or some other allied form. Hence it is 

 quite probable that King's Improved may itself be a hybrid of this nature, the split- 

 leaved plant which appeared as if a saltatory variation being a recessive manifesta- 

 tion of the G. schottii characteristics. It is equally possible, however, that the fresh 

 seed, imported from Mexico, may have been mixed and that the split-leaved plant had 

 survived in the States for some years (and even got hybridized there) before its presence 

 was recognized, just as the "Hindi weed cotton" of Egypt is reproduced year after 

 year. In fact it might be possible to be a cultivated state of G. schottii in which no 

 hybridization existed whatever, a weed of not sufficient importance to attract atten- 

 tion, which, once mixed, the seeds could not very readily be picked out from the 

 supply reserved for future sowings. 



If the narrow-leaved variations were a result of recent importa- 

 tions from Mexico they might be expected to appear more fre- 

 quently in the Texas big-boll type of cotton and other varieties that 

 Watt assigns to Gossypium mexicanum than in the King and other 

 eastern small-boiled varieties that Watt holds to be more related to 

 Oossypium punctatum and G. Tiirsutum. In reality the okra-leaved 

 variations seem to be confined to the King and other small-boll tj'pes. 

 They are certainly very rare in the big-boll varieties, if they occur 

 at all. 



For American readers it is hardly necessary to add that the theory 

 of the existence of Gossypium schottii or any other wild type in the 

 cotton-growing districts of the United States is not known to have 

 any warrant of fact. There is a wild cotton in southern Florida, per- 

 haps the same as that which has been described from the West 

 Indies as Gossypium jamaicense. A specimen recently received from 

 Mr. T. Ralph Robinson, collected by Mrs. Robinson on Terraceia 

 Island in the lower part of Tampa Bay, indicates that the wild cotton 

 of Florida extends farther to the north than has been supposed hitherto. 

 Yet it would be a mistake to assume that it represents a close rela- 

 tive of our cultivated Upland varieties. The petals are yellow and 

 have purple spots like those of the Egyptian or Sea Island cottons, 

 instead of the white, spotless petals of the Upland varieties. 



As a further example of the extent to which parallelism of leaf form 

 may confuse classification, mention may be made of a curious, small- 

 boiled, narrow-leaved cotton found by Messrs. G. N. Collins and C. B. 

 Doyle at Tuxtla Gutierrez m southern Mexico, under the vernacular 



1 Watt, G. Op. cit., p. 207. 

 221 



