184 



WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



New and 



Old 



Worlds. 



Herbaria 



speci- 



Purple 

 spots. 



shoots, leaf stalks and veins are clothed. The leaves rapidly lose 

 the habit of being entire, and are mostly 3-lobed, or as a result very 

 possibly of hybridisation, or simply of luxuriant cultivation, become 

 partially 5-lobed. The flowers range from being small pale yellow 

 to large and yellow with a purplish tinge, but are not as a rule 

 nowadays possessed of dark-coloured patches on the claws of the 

 petals, although these, as already pointed out, are distinctly present 

 in Miller's type of the species. The fruit is usually four-celled and 

 the seeds always large, ovate truncate on one extremity and with a 

 pronounced fuzz, which may be greyish, rusty or green in colour, often 

 changing colour with maturity and age. 



It seems unnecessary to attempt a detailed description of this 

 species, since it is practically only a cultivated state of G. punctatum 

 already fully defined. In fact, these two forms have been separated 

 mainly with a view to secure recognition of what would appear to 

 have been the original habitat of the species, namely the localities 

 where it either exists in a truly wild condition or as a completely 

 acclimatised plant. It has similarly been thought desirable to 

 retain the name first given to the wild plant rather than to sink all 

 the manifestations that exist under the still earlier name for the 

 cultivated states. After a little study it is fairly easy to isolate the 

 wild from the cultivated conditions, and hence separate names for 

 them become a matter of convenience, if not of scientific necessity. 

 (See Plates Nos. 29, 30 and 31.) 



Habitat. Eeported from Europe, Persia, China, Java, India, 

 Africa, throughout America &c. Small (I.e.) speaks of it as ' In 

 fields and waste places, Virginia and Arkansas to Florida and 

 Texas.' Heuz6 remarks that it came originally from Jamaica and 

 the warm parts of South America. 



Citation of Specimens. The Sloane Herbarium of the British Museum 

 contains (vol. 133, folio 14) a specimen of this plant, described as ' Cotton 

 from Carolina ' (see Plate, No. 29 B), and it will be observed the flowers have 

 purple spots. This is apparently the oldest specimen extant. The volume 

 in which it occurs is described as containing plants ' gathered and dried by 

 order of Mary Duehess of Beaufort.' The exact date of the cotton specimen 

 is not shown, but the Duchess died in 1714. It seems likely the seed had 

 been obtained from Carolina, and the specimen preserved was from a plant 

 grown by her Grace at Badminton in Gloucestershire. It is also probable 

 that Philip Miller obtained seed from this Badminton stock. His specimen 

 (grown at the Chelsea Physic Garden) is preserved in the Miller Section of 

 the Sloane Herbarium (vol. 294, folio 45), and is the type of the species 

 (see Plate, No. 29 A). Turning now to the general Herbarium (British 

 Museum), there are several .sheets of this species gathered from the Chelsea 



