G. A. GAMMIE: 3 
flower itself before it is fertilized. The results of a long series of 
experiments conducted by Mr. 8S. V. Shevade show that emasculated 
flowers allowed to remain uncovered usually drop off unfertilized. 
In the few cases where he observed that pollen was carried to 
the stigmas by insects, bolls were not subsequently developed. 
These observations are confirmed by the experience of Mr. F. 
Fletcher, m.a., B.se. (Deputy Director of Agriculture, Bombay), 
in Egypt and India. Many of the varieties grown in India are 
separated by long distances, in which cases hybridization is, of 
course, a physical impossibility. In districts where a mixture of 
varieties is habitually grown by the cultivators, no hybrid plants 
are to be found. The progeny of plants which are artificially 
cross-fertilized are usually more fertile than their parents. This 
proves that cross-fertilization is really of great service to the plant. 
The form of its flower with a dark base is an ideal insect lure, and 
it is difficult to understand why cross-fertilization should not 
prevail. The only solution to the problem appears, therefore, to 
lie in the fact that, in the Indian cottons, these so-called species 
and hybrids are merely cultivated races, evolved by time and 
environment from one prototype. All the evidence available to 
me appears to prove, almost without the probability of a doubt, 
that Gossypium obtusifolium, Roxb., the Rozi of Gujarat, the most 
widely distributed wild and cultivated cotton in the old world, is 
the parent from which all our present forms have sprung. The 
progeny from the plants of this species grown in Poona for seven 
years now show characters which bring it into close relation with 
Gt. herbaceum and G. indicum. In the field it is easily distinguish- 
able as a species by habit alone, but I find it very difficult to 
separate it with certainty from G. herbaceum or G. indicum in the 
Herbarium. The bracteoles, which are relied upon as diagnostic 
characters, are also misleading as they are indifferently toothed or 
entire in flowers from the same plant. Gossypium Stocksii, a wild 
plant of Sind, is by some considered the parent stock of Indian 
cottons. [I cannot concur in this opinion. It resembles no 
Indian cotton and possesses certain characters which induce me 
to surmise that it is a degeneration of some American cotton. 
