SECTION II: G. NANKING 121 



seems (when dealing with cultivated plants at all events) permissible 

 to adopt the best name even though it may not have the claim of 

 actual botanical priority. 



The readiest eye-marks, for the assemblage of forms that it is Eye-marks 

 convenient to associate with G. Nanking, Meyen, are as follows : ki^ an " 

 The fact of being mostly perennial plants ; the shape of the soft cotton, 

 cinereous leaves, which are almost non-cordate and have often three 

 veins bearing glands below ; the large, ovate acute, sparsely toothed 

 bracteoles and the yellow flowers with purple spots. Variety rubicunda 

 has very similar leaves though smaller as a rule, with only one gland 

 and with obscure adhesive lateral lobes, but its flowers are purple 

 and it might accordingly be regarded as an intermediate form. Still, 

 however, while the differences botanically between the G. arboreum 

 and the G. Nanking groups are in degree more than anything 

 else, economically G, Nanking is, at the present day, doubtless much 

 more valuable than any of the directly G. arboreum forms. Todaro 

 reproduces Meyen'g original drawing of this plant and gives a second 

 coloured illustration which he says represents a recognisable variety 

 of it, viz. grandiflora. The only difference appears, however, to be in 



the size of the flower, which in G. Nanking, Meyen, may not be much Size of 



flower 

 longer than the bracteoles, and in var. grandiflora is often two or 



three times longer. With the extensive series of cottons that exist 

 such a distinction must be rejected as unworthy of consideration. 

 The flowers are in fact most frequently longer than the bracteoles, 

 but in the length of the bracteoles there is considerable latitude. 

 Todaro's coloured illustration had better be viewed as representing 

 an annual state with bracteoles a little shorter than is customary, and 

 Meyen's picture may fairly well be regarded as showing the normal 

 condition of the corolla. 



The bracteoles relatively to the corolla are shorter in the average 

 Indian examples than in the Chinese, so that in this respect they 

 resemble Todaro's picture more than that of Meyen. On the other 

 hand, some of the G. Nanking series of cottons display characters of 

 far greater interest than the mere length of the corolla (which Todaro 

 lays stress on), and they might in fact be broken up into varieties or 

 distinctive races. Thus for example Dr. Bretschneider's specimen 

 (already mentioned) has the seeds black that is to say, almost devoid Recessive 

 of an under velvet a character which brings to mind the naked or 

 black-seeded so-called indigenous cottons of South India (see p. 153), 

 but it is highly probable that both these may have to be regarded 



