SECTION III: ANALYTICAL KEY TO SPECIES 165 



calyx obscurely toothed ; fruit 3-celled ; seeds 

 large, free, and with a distinct though often only 

 partially formed fuzz, green, grey or rust-coloured, 

 and wool copious and silky 



35. G. peruvianum . . . . (p. 213). 



*** Leaves very broad, quite glabrous (except when young or on the 

 veins] segmented for hardly more than one-third the diameter into 

 3-7 radiating lobes (the lower pair often teeth rather than lobes), 

 lobes triangular, much broader than long. 



t Mowers small on short pedicels; capsule mostly 

 5-celled ; seeds with a complete or partial fuzz 



36. GK mexicanum . . . . (p. 226). 



In another place I have characterised G. punctatum as demar- Demarca- 

 cating the fuzzy-seeded cottons (see p. 44). On the one hand there 



is the well-marked group formerly called by writers on this subject the seeded 

 ' Asiatic Cottons,' (pp. 77-213) and on the other an assemblage of fuzzy 

 seeded cottons confined to Central and South America (pp. 204-13. 

 This I venture to think is more than a coincidence. By American 

 cottons are generally understood G. barbadense, G. brasiliense, dc. 

 Down to the past decade or so G. hirsutum was classed as a variety 

 if not a synonym for G. herbaceum. It was accordingly treated as 

 an Asiatic species. Major Trevor Clarke, it will be seen (p. 190), Crossing 

 advanced the opinion that while the Asiatic cottons could be freely an ^ encan 

 crossed and hybridised among themselves ; and while the American Asiatic 

 series could be similarly interbred among themselves, the two sets, 

 Asiatic and American, could not be crossed. But if G. punctatum 

 and its great cultivated manifestation G. hirsutum, are American in 

 origin, then the impossibility of crossing the Asiatic and American 

 sets of cottons instantly disappears. The connecting link, the means of 

 bridging over the difficulty hitherto experienced, exists in the American 

 fuzzy-seeded cottons. Numerous investigators have reported the 

 production of crosses between G. hirsutum and G. herbaceum or G. 

 obtusifolium. In fact, Major Trevor Clarke himself furnished a hybrid 

 of that very nature to the Indian Cotton Commissioner. 



But G. punctatum, var. Jamaica is not the only fuzzy-seeded cotton 

 in America, and to this fact I attribute one of the advantages to be 

 gained by my classification, viz. the definite recognition of the American 

 fuzzy-seeded cottons. (See p. 336.) They have been too long neglected 

 and their possible value lost sight of by the practical cotton-grower. 



