122 WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



as indicating hybridisation with G. purpurascens, if not even with 

 G. barbadense or G. brasiliense. 



Colour of Some of the Indian examples of this species have purple flowers, 

 others yellow with purple blotches, and in still others the flowers 

 are pale yellow with a purple tinge on the extremities of the petals. 

 A range of variability such as that can best be accounted for on 

 the assumption that the assemblage embraces many cultivated races, 

 each owing very possibly its peculiarities largely to hybridisation. 

 The floss is often at all events of a very superior kind. Dr. 

 Henderson, for example, says of the plant seen by him in Yarkand 

 that it bears an enormous quantity of pods, with a much longer and 

 softer fibre than the Indian cotton. But the Central Asiatic races, as 

 already observed, may be viewed as constituting the link of con- 

 nection between the Chinese and Indian forms. 



CULTIVATION 



SPECIAL FORMS. It would be rash to affirm (in the present 

 state of knowledge) that the special cultivated states to which 

 G. Nanking may be referred constitute definite varieties that can 

 readily be separated from each other. The point of importance is 

 that within certain fairly well-defined areas there are commercially 

 and agriculturally distinctive cottons that would appear to be states or 

 graphical races f & Nanking. The first of these geographical forms is the 

 forms. most important cotton of the warm temperate tracts of Northern 

 India (including some portions of the plains of the Panjab), but 

 more especially the North-West Himalaya. Though met with in 

 other regions (e.g. the mountains of South India, Upper Egypt, 

 Persia, Central Asia, &c.) it is hardly anywhere so abundant as in the 

 Himalaya, and the varietal name himalayana accordingly seems 

 appropriate. The second, already discussed, having purple flowers, 

 is appropriately designated rubicunda. The third form is of 

 importance mainly in South India and Burma, and its most general 

 vernacular name nadam may, therefore, with advantage be used 

 for its botanical designation. The fourth may be spoken of as a 

 group of cottons, mostly annuals, and which in point of shape of 

 leaf can hardly be separated from many of the nadam cottons. The 

 best and most general name for these is bani. They are met with, 

 so far as India is concerned, in the Deccan, the Central Provinces, 

 Eajputana, Kathiawar, the United Provinces and Bengal, but they 

 occur also in Madagascar and Abyssinia. The fifth special form of 

 G. Nanking is characteristic of certain parts of Western India, and 



