SECTION I: KARACHI WILD COTTON 75 



teeth almost awl-shaped through the thickening and prolonging of the mid- 

 rib, veins one to each tooth and two in the sinus between, accrescent, and 

 when ruptured by the fruit its spinose teeth look like an inner whorl of 

 bracteoles. Pollen-grains having the surface of the exine packed with 

 short opaque warts that end in short sharp spines (see Plate 53, f. 4). 

 Fruit sub-rotund, suddenly apiculate, prominently dotted with black glands 

 on a dark green-blue surface, 3-celled ; valves rigid, but margins not reflexed 

 on ripening (ff. 2 and 6), and seeds and wool hardly protruding; seeds 

 2 to 3 in each cell (f. 6), closely compacted together, the apex pointing 

 downwards, triangular in section and truncate at the base, coated with a 

 rich rusty or golden floss, which is elaborately folded or crumpled so as to 

 look like a tomentose coating on the seed (ff. 7 and 8), but when opened 

 out is seen to be j inch long, irregular in length, hardly referable to two 

 layers (fuzz and floss), but after removal of the red floss from the surface, 

 the seed is seen to be smooth, black-coloured, slightly beaked (f. 9). 



The lateral flowering branches, being arrested by the production of one 

 or more flowers and a few abortive leaves, give the plant a tufted appearance 

 that is very characteristic. After the fruits have ripened, these lateral 

 shoots become dried up and are rarely elongated into normal leafy branches, 

 but become false spines. This tendency is one that should prove of value in 

 tracing out its hybrids, if any such exist. 



Habitat. This very interesting wild species is found near Sindand 

 Karachi, India. Dr. Cooke says, 'It is very abundant on an ex- 



tensive plain at Moach, near Karachi. It is said to bear in Sind 

 the vernacular name of hiraguni kdpas.' But a curious circumstance 

 has now to be mentioned : namely, that across the Persian Gulf, 

 on the Dhofar Mountains of South-east Arabia, Mr. J. Th. Bent, 

 in 1895, discovered this wild cotton and thus extended the area 

 of the species very considerably. 



Citation of Specimens. Karachi : J. E. Stocks, n. 469 ; Dalzell, n. 4 ; 

 also an extensive series collected by Dr. Cooke ; J. Th. Bent, n. 173, 

 Dhofar Mountains. 



Nomenclature. There would seem little doubt that the writers 

 who have supposed this to be the wild condition of G. herbaceum, 

 Linn., or a degenerated state of some American cotton, are alike in 

 error. Such opinions very possibly arose through the imperfect 

 description of G. Stocksii originally published. Its appearance in 

 both Arabia and India, as a purely wild plant (were there no other Wild 

 considerations), necessitates its acceptance as a distinct species. 

 But while it is as distinct from G. herbaceum as any two species 

 of Gossypium can be, and has not been reported as having yielded 

 by selection and cultivation any special races of cotton, still it 

 cannot, of course, be emphatically affirmed that by spontaneous 

 crossing with other forms it may not have contributed toward the 



