CHARACTERS OF HINDI HYBRIDS. 29 



Wliile flowers always have the more open, ciiplike form of the 

 Hindi cotton instead of the hmger and more tubular form of the 

 Egyptian cotton. It very rarely if ever happens that any single 

 Hindi character is brought into definite expression by itself — that is, 

 without being accompanied by the more or less definite expression of 

 other Hindi characters. It is hardly to be supposed that any of the 

 Hindi plants, any more than the Egyptian, are pure bred in the 

 sense of having had no Egyptian ancestors, and yet the Hindi type 

 is nearly as uniform as the Egyptian, in spite of all the selection 

 that has been directed against it. Neither is it reasonable to assume 

 that all of the pronounced hybrid plants have the same proportions of 

 Hindi and T^gyptian blood, though they form nearly as definite a 

 group as the parent types. 



Hindi-like lint and seeds sometimes occur on plants that giv-e little 

 or no external evidence of Hindi contamination, but plants that have 

 previously shown Hindi leaves or flowers very seldom, if ever, have 

 tvpical Egyptian bolls or lint of good Egyptian quality. In a field 

 of Jannovitch cotton raised in Arizona in 1900 from imported 

 Egyptian seed numerous individuals were found that seemed, early 

 in the season, to depart from the normal Egyptian type only in the 

 lighter and more pinkish tinge of the purple spot at the base of the 

 petals. But when these plants were examined again in the fall it 

 was found that the bolls and lint also departed from the type of the 

 variety. All the pale-spotted individuals had small bolls, and some 

 of them showed naked seeds and short Hindi-like lint. 



That the depth of color of the petal spot can be, in itself, a matter 

 of any direct significance in the economy of the plant is hardly to 

 be believed, but it seems to have an indirect significance as indicating 

 a tendency for the Hindi or other abnormal characters to come into 

 expression. "White petals may be considered in the same way as evi- 

 dence of a still stronger tendency to express the Hindi characters 

 in the parts to be subsequentl}' formed. Verv' pale j^ellow flowers 

 were noticed on a few Eg3qotian-like plants at iNIansurah, but in 

 nearl}' all cases a departure from the normal Egj'ptian color involved 

 a complete change to the creamy white of the Hindi flowers. 



Although white Hindi-like flowers are rarely to be found on plants 

 that have produced Eg3'ptian foliage, such sudden changes in the 

 expression of the characters do not appear to be normal phenomena 

 of heredity, at least in cotton hybrids, for plants with these incon- 

 gruous combinations of characters are generally infertile and some- 

 times completely sterile." 



" Mutative Reversions in Cotton, Circular No. 53, Bureau of Plant Industry, 

 U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1010. p. 6. 

 210 



