816 WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



SECTION V. Naked-seeded Cotton with Braeteoles quite free 

 and Floral Glands absent. 



BBACTEOLES free, ovate rotund, deeply auriculate ; GLANDS, both 

 internal and external, absent ; SEEDS quite naked, striated, floss easily 

 removable; LEAVES very large, deeply cordate, and five-palmatifid, 

 glabrous or nearly so, but with glands on all the veins below. 



There is only one species, so far as known, belonging to this 

 section, viz. that from East and Central Africa. It has never been 

 seen under cultivation. 



ANALYTICAL KEY TO THE SPECIES. 



Stipules large oblique, stem-clasping 



42. G. Kirkii. . . . below. 



42. G. KIRKII, M. Mast., Journ. Linn. Soc., xix., (1881) p. 212-4. 



Desorip- Leaves 5- or 3-palmatifid, deeply cordate, sub-glabrate, glands 



tion. prominent on all the veins below (f. 1) ; petioles long stout ; stipules 



large, conspicuous, obliquely-ovate, stem-clasping ; bracteoles 3, free, 

 thick but not clawed, woolly, deeply auricled, coarsely toothed ; calyx 

 relatively small, minutely toothed, thick, woolly within (ff. 2 and 3) 

 veins not visible ; seeds free, ovate, smooth polished, black, with grey 

 lines (ff. 5 and 6) that indicate the origin of the short rust-coloured 

 readily separable wool. (See Plate No. 51.) 



Branches square, as also the petioles and peduncles, and all densely coated 

 with short matted grey stellate hairs. Leaves ovate, acute, cordate, two- 

 thirds segmented into 5 lobes (the upper leaves on the flowering shoots only 

 3-lobed), 1 to 3 inches long by 2 to 4 broad, the central lobe by far the 

 largest ; lobes oblong acuminate, with bristle tips, constricted below into 

 the open rounded sinuses, stellately hairy on the veins and reticulations, 

 otherwise glabrate, gland-dotted, and with prominent glands on the mid-ribs 

 Of all the lobes, the glands of the central and first laterals well within the 

 lobes, those of the lower pair within the blade proper ; in the herbarium the 

 under surface of the leaf seems always to dry into a slaty-grey, the upper 

 into a brown-black colour peculiarities that are very characteristic ; petioles 

 3 to 5 inches long ; stipules very conspicuous, short but broad and obliquely 

 ovate, embracing or clasping the stem. Inflorescence abundant short lateral 

 shoots, not much longer than the leaves, but each supporting two, or it may 

 be only one flower, and two or three small leaves ; peduncles and pedicels 

 conspicuously 4-angled ; bracteoles 3, free from each other, not clawed, in 

 bud looking almost like a bivalved shell owing to the third and smaller 

 bracteole being pushed on one side and compressed between the outer larger 



