SECTION II: CHINESE COTTON 115 



it is G. Nanking, Meyen, and the flower I believe to have been 

 fragmentary or diseased ; it is an improbable condition in the genus 

 Gossypium. 



The present species is a bush with delicately formed and often Descrip- 

 purple-coloured twigs, leaf-stalks, &c., all parts with shaggy hairs 

 and younger textures with, in addition, a sparse coating of stellate 

 hairs. Leaves imperfectly cordate, half-cut into 3-5 (mostly 3) lobes, 

 the extra pair appearing as if artificially attached, thus making the 

 leaf almost broader than long; lobes ovate-oblong, acute (or even 

 obtuse) to often acuminate, and 3 veins ordinarily with glands 

 below. Bracteoles large, generally half the length of corolla, 

 purplish-coloured, united below, and with 3-4 sharp teeth on the 

 acute apex. Flowers large, but sometimes never fully expanding, 

 yellow with faint purple claws, petals rotating to right, and turning 

 purple with age. Seeds large, densely coated with, most frequently, 

 a rust-coloured fuzz and silky floss that also tends to a reddish colour. 

 (See Plate No. 15.) 



The wide range of forms referred to this position are by no means Cotton of 

 difficult to recognise collectively. They are cultivated on upland ^ soils - 

 dry soils, or during seasons subject to dry weather. The leaves 

 are of a smooth compact texture, very often glabrescent on upper 

 surface, and of pale green colour characters which once seen can 

 hardly ever be mistaken for either G. arboreum on the one side or 

 G. obtusifolium on the other. Moreover, the bottom pair of lobes 

 seem always to widen unnecessarily the leaf while they fill up what 

 might be spoken of as the natural cordature of the base. This is 

 the cotton most commonly met with in China, is the type of the series, 

 and may, therefore, be here more fully described in amplification of 

 the diagnostic characters : 



An annual or perennial bush. Has delicate, sparsely branched, round Details, 

 stems, which, on exposed parts (and when fresh), have a purplish tinge 

 below the coating of spreading hairs. The young twigs, leaves, petioles, 

 and peduncles are almost coated with short, adpressed, stellate hairs a 

 property that gives them, in the herbarium, a soft greenish-grey colour, 

 much like the true G. herbacewm. Leaves with an extra pair of lobes 

 appearing as if attached to the others, sometimes making the five lobes 

 seem like large crenatures across the upper half, the lobes arching upwards 

 from the often imperfectly cordate base, in a manner which, when once 

 recognised, can scarcely be mistaken; lobes often broad ovate oblong, in 

 Chinese forms usually obtuse, in Indian acuminate and constricted slightly 

 below ; sinus rounded, but only rarely furnished with a supplementary tooth ; 

 stipules, lower, narrow linear acuminate ; upper, especially on the peduncles, 



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