170 



WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



Descrip- 

 tion. 



Dis- 

 tinctive 

 Forms. 



America 



and 



Africa. 



Speci- 

 mens. 



warted, and with tufted stellate hairs at the extremity within the cordate 

 base of the leaf, this degree of hairiness often existing when the plant is 

 otherwise almost quite glabrous ; stipules oblong to linear-lanceolate, 

 caducous; leaves often arranged as it were in two rows, with solitary 

 ascending peduncles. Inflorescence on short lateral extra-axillary shoots, 

 for the most part bearing only one leaf and one flower, the former some- 

 times falling early, thus leaving the flower to appear as if borne on a long 

 jointed peduncle, the upper third the actual peduncle 3-gonal warted, 

 shaggy, through masses of stellate hairs, thickened upwards into a glandular- 

 like swelling within the involucre auricles ; bracteoles 3 ovate acute, almost 

 quite free, deeply auricled, 9-11 toothed, ciliately villous on both sides, 

 becoming accrescent on the fruit and membranous. Flowers medium 

 sized, wide, from a very short tube, yellow, with small, irregular, purple 

 spots and pink tinge on the tips of the petals as the flowers age ; corolla 

 with outer surface tomentose, margins of the claws ciliate, and rotating to 

 left ; calyx campanulate, 5-angled or toothed, many-veined, glabrous, pro- 

 minently black gland-dotted, ruptured in the fruit, having 3 glands at the 

 base which become most distinct in the fruiting stage. Fruit ovate, oblong, 

 glabrous, style much protruding and causing the fruit to become beaked, 

 3-4-celled, cells 3-8 seeded; seeds free from each other, remarkably large, 

 and distinctly possessed of both a fuzz and a floss, which firmly adhere to 

 the seed, the former often rusty-coloured, the latter pure white and silky. 



There are two forms of this plant (a) var. Jamaica, the American and 

 West Indian, and (b) var. nigeria, the African. The former ( = O. jamaicense, 

 Macf. Plates Nos. 27 and 28 B) is subglabrous, the leaves more deeply lobed, and 

 the calyx teeth triangular to crenate, and the seeds small, irregular, with 

 rust-coloured fuzz and small quantity of dirty- white, woolly floss ; the latter 

 (G. punctatum, Sch. et Thon. Plates Nos. 27 and 28 A) is often pilose, the leaves 

 ovate cordate, acuminate, entire or shortly 3 -lobed, the calyx teeth tailed, the 

 seeds large, with white fuzz and wool fairly abundant. 



Habitat. East Coast tracts of America from Alabama to Costa 

 Eica, including Jamaica and Curagao Islands, and westward to 

 Arizona ; also the West coast of Africa, from Senegal to Angola, 

 and inland to Central Africa and the borders of Upper Egypt and 

 of East Africa. 



Citation of Specimens. According to Macfadyen, G. jamaicense is ' the 

 Wild Cotton' of Eockfort (Jamaica), but, curiously enough, no sample of 

 it from that locality exists in the Kew, British Museum, or Edinburgh 

 Herbaria ; but there is a plant with huge fruits and immense seeds, collected 

 by C. Wright at Cuba, that seems to belong to this species. There are, 

 however, several specimens of it in the Herbaria just named : from Key 

 West, Florida (such as Eugel, n. 93, February 1846, and his ' G. racemosum, 

 Poir ? ' (n. 92) collected in South Florida, January 1845) ; that contributed 

 by A. H. Curtiss, nn. 386 A and 5,655 (named G. uliginosum, Linn., a name 

 that cannot be traced) ; also from Alabama (by Drummond 1832 (see Plate, 

 No. 27 B) ; from Mexico (by Pavon in B. M.) ; and from Costa Eica (by 

 Tonduz, n. 13,484). Dr. E. Palmer collected a cotton (n. 116) in the State 

 of Coahuila (Mexico) (San Lorenzo de Laguna) that is very possibly this 



