56 



WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



Be- 



arrange- 

 ment 

 desirable. 



Gland- 

 dots. 



cuticular appendage consists of but one fleece, and that practically 

 inseparable (a condition that also prevails with one section of the 

 species of Gossypium), by far the most important species of 

 Gossypium manifest a further development. One section of these 

 has the wool referable to two coats, an outer removable fleece the 

 cotton proper and an inner adherent fleece known as the fuzz. 

 Still another group has a removable floss, but no under fuzz, the seed 

 becoming naked on the separation of the floss. These peculiarities 

 will be found fully expounded (pp. 7, 27, 41, 62), and it is 

 only necessary to allude to them here briefly in order to indicate 

 their possible generic value. It would, in fact, almost seem that the 

 classification of the future may transfer the species that possess a 

 rust-coloured fuzz but no separable floss to other genera, and retain 

 the true floss-bearing forms as constituting the genus Gossypium. I 

 have not adopted that course at present for several obvious reasons. 

 A careful study of all the allied genera of MALVACE.E would be 

 essential before justification could be obtained for a radical 

 rearrangement. Moreover, it has often been affirmed that some of 

 the transferable species (such as G. Stocksii, G. tomentosum, &c.) 

 have been the ancestral stocks of the cultivated cottons. In the 

 present state of our knowledge, therefore, it has appeared to me 

 desirable to retain, as far as possible, the genus as accepted 

 by botanists. But in concluding these observations on the 

 fruit and seed, it may be pointed out that in Thurberia the inner 

 wall of the capsule, or rather its partitions, bear a soft white woolly 

 coating, a condition that assumes importance in some of the genera 

 of BOMBACE^E, and in these respects, therefore, it is readily isolated 

 from the other genera above reviewed. 



Glands. Much stress has been laid, by certain authors, on the 

 position and nature of the glands. There may be said to be three 

 distinct kinds present : 



1. Minute glandular dots (as they are described) more or less 

 imbedded within the tissue of the leaf, bracteole, calyx, corolla and 

 capsule. These have been described by Dr. A. de Bary (' Compar. 

 Anat. of Veget. Organs,' Engl. ed. 1884, pp. 201-10) as intercellular 

 secretory reservoirs. They contain colouring matter, and are by 

 Martinet described as lysigenetic. They are round and filled with 

 a violet colouring matter soluble with difficulty in alcohol. They 

 are, moreover, nearly universally present, though in some species 

 they are often obscured by the tomentum. It would seem, however, 



