242 



WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



Hindi 

 weed. 



Mexican 

 cotton. 



Guate- 

 malan 

 cotton. 



that bractlets protecting the glands in Molango Mexican cotton 

 (grown at Washington), have actually been detected by me in a 

 specimen (n. 615), kindly supplied by Mr. L. H. Dewey but in 

 no other example of the extensive series of Uplands which he has 

 been good enough to furnish (see pp. 230 to 240). 



But it is most significant that the cotton supplied to me from 

 Egypt by Mr. W. Lawrence Balls of the Khedivial Agricultural 

 Society, Cairo, under the name ' Hindi Weed ' should prove to be 

 exactly the Molango and to possess the minute bractlets seen in that 

 plant. Moreover the plates furnished by Cook show, as I take them, 

 G. vitifolium (PI. n., ff. 1, 2 ; PI. in. ; PL x., f. 1) rather than 

 G. hirsutum. When to all this is added the fairly well ascertained 

 distribution of the two plants named, it becomes evident that the 

 Guatemala weevil-resisting cotton differs materially from G. hirsutum, 

 though it might be G. mexicanum, and in some respects even G. 

 peruvianum. In passing it may be added that I have occasionally 

 seen bractlets in several distinct species, as for example in G. obtusi- 

 folium, var. africana (see Plate No. 23 C, f. x) ; G. Sturtii (see Plate 

 No. 2, ff. 4, 4 a) and G. Palmerii (see Plate No. 34, f. 3 a), species so 

 far as known that have never been visited by the boll-weevil. 



But it is certainly curious that an undoubted wild plant in 

 Mexico (G. Palmerii) should possess bractlets protecting its internal 

 glands, much as Cook has described the bractlets of the Guatemalan 

 kekchi cotton plant since, according to Cook the Mexican cottons 

 are not subject to the weevil. 



The following passages from Cook's account of weevil-resisting 

 adaptations may help to make his results and conclusions clear : 

 ' The Guatemalan cotton protected by the keleps is a genuine Upland 

 variety, very early and productive, with a fibre of good length and 

 texture, as already stated.' 'It belongs to G. hirsutum, the Upland 

 species or series of varieties, in the sense that it is not a Sea Island, 

 Egyptian, or Kidney cotton, but it is distinctly more different from 

 any of the Upland varieties now cultivated in the United States, 

 than these are from each other ' (I.e. p. 8) 



' The whole Upland type of cotton appears to have been originally 

 a native of the Central American region.' ' Varieties which reached 

 the United States from Mexico and the West Indies may, however, 

 have had little or no contact with the weevil for many centuries, 

 while in Central America the struggle for existence has remained 

 severe and continuous down to the present day. It is now known 



