SECTION II : VAR. WIGHTIANA 153 



.completely coated with fuzz (white jowari hathi), but the same seed on Tellapatti 

 germination may produce any or all of these three conditions. These are cottons, 

 therefore splitting recessive forms. A sample sent to me from Tinnevelly 

 is called vellai-kanni-parthi-chedi. 



Professor Middleton (I.e. p. 7) was apparently the first of the recent scientific 

 writers who drew pointed attention to this plant and to the peculiarity of its 

 seeds. On Middleton's receiving a packet of seed he concluded that the black 

 seeds were Bourbon cotton and accordingly picked them out and sowed them 

 separately. They produced identical plants with the white seeds, but on 

 studying the living plants he came to the conclusion that they manifested no 

 trace of a Bourbon hybrid. To that opinion I must demur. The leaves are Descrip- 

 broader, more deeply cordate-auriculate, more frequently 3-lobed, the * lon< 

 bracteoles more fully united and more accrescent, and the pods much longer 

 and more pointed than is customary with uppam cottons. "While assorting the 

 specimens in my possession, and without having observed the names on the 

 labels, I placed the proliferous shoots of this plant alongside of G. hirsutum, 

 Linn., var. religiosa. (See specimens in B.E.P. Herb. nn. 21,872 and 21,873 

 and compare with the white-seeded nn. 21,868 and 21,869.) A closer study, 

 more especially in view of the known acclimatisation of Bourbon cotton in 

 South India, seemed to justify the transference of the tellapatti cottons to 

 the position of undoubted hybrid states between the so-called Asiatic and American 

 American stocks. The fact of the stems, foliage, &c., being much more densely x Asiatic 

 coated with hairs than in the uppam ancestor is but an illustration of the " vbrids ' 

 special and often inexplicable strength manifested by hybrids. Hybridisa- 

 tion with G. hirsutum and G. obtusifolium would not likely give a naked 

 seed, but the similarity of such hybrids may throw a useful sidelight on the 

 possible origin of some of the races of cultivated cottons. Hybrids from 

 G. purpurascens (Bourbon cotton) with G. obtusifoliutn, while doubtless 

 difficult to form, have been produced and come in my opinion very close to 

 the jowari hathi cotton above indicated. It would thus seem highly likely 

 that the appearance of fuzzy seeds among the black-seeded jowari hathi but 

 demonstrates that the fuzz is the recessive ancestral condition to the dominant 

 naked seed. 



24. Var. africana, Watt. Lobes of the leaves a little more African 

 drawn out and more constricted below ; bracteoles ovate sub-rotund, form< 

 coarsely toothed around the margin, firm in texture and with the fuzz 

 on the seeds usually pure white or grey, and the wool more copious 

 and finer than in the Indian forms. (See Plate No. 23.) 



Citation of Specimens. The best examples of this seen by me in the Speci- 

 Kew and British Museum Herbaria are : SOUTH AFRICA : E. E. Galpin, 1890, mens< 

 n. 742, shrub found in the Kaap Eiver Valley at Barberton, alt. 2,000 feet ' ; 

 Dr. A. Eehmann's n. 5227 from the Boshveld, Transvaal (leaves a little 

 more apiculate than is customary) ; M. Bautanen's n. 59, Omboland ; 

 W. Goetze's plant n. 75 from Nyassaland (leaves small, sub-glabrous) ; 

 H. Bolus's n. 7680, 30 miles from Delagoa Bay ; Mrs. Lugard's n. 198, from 

 the Kwebe hills, Ngamiland (ff. B & C). This is described as a spreading bush, 

 4 feet. The bracteoles are remarkably like those of G. Kirlcii, otherwise it is 



