THE COTTON PLANT 



GOSSYPIUM 



OBTUSIFOLIUM 



Indian Wild Cotton 



could be called a high-grade kahnami, his nearest approach to that being a speci- 

 men that might be described as the wagria cotton of to-day. 



To conclude this account of the forms of a. WanMng, it may have been 

 observed that I have not attempted to describe the races that might be men- 

 tioned as examples of each of the great groups, \~atinm, iti, Koji and Himn- 

 i,ii/<i mi. But it is next to impossible to furnish descriptions that would be 

 intelligible to persons who have not a personal acquaintance with the living 

 plants. To the cultivators of India they are, however, often of considerable 

 value. Into one or other of the varieties of G. ifnnking have to be placed 

 all the yellow-flowered perennial cottons with thick leathery, broad, five-lobed, 

 imperfectly cordate leaves, having three glands and large ovate acute, thick- 

 toothed bracteoles. 



D.E.P., 



iv., 27. 

 Indian 

 Wild 

 Cotton. 



Feral 

 Condition. 



Indian 



Long 



Staples. 



G. obtusifolium, Roxb., FL Ind., 1832, iii., 183; Todaro, Relaz. 

 Cult, dei Cot., 1877-8, 129-30 ; Watt, I.e. 139-43, tt. 19, 20 : G. herbaceum, 

 Aliotta, Riv. Grit. Gen. Goss., 1903, 67. 



A shrubby very ramous plant with small leaves, having three, more rarely 

 five, obtuse entire lobes, stipules falcate ; bracteoles entire ; capsule ovate, cells 

 3-seeded ; seeds free, clothed with firmly adhering short greenish-grey down, 

 under a small portion of ash-coloured wool. A native of Ceylon, but not culti- 

 vated. Flowered during the rains and cold season in the Botanic Gardens at 

 Calcutta, where it was cultivated from seed obtained from Ceylon of a plant 

 reported to be there wild. 



The above, very slightly abbreviated, is Roxburgh's original account of this 

 species. The additional information available may be said to consist of a manuscript 

 coloured drawing made under Roxburgh's supervision and named by him, the 

 original of which is in the Calcutta Herbarium, and an exact copy in the Royal 

 Herbarium, Kew. It is, however, the plant called G. herbaceum by most writers 

 who have described the cottons of India and Africa, and is the G. nirstitiim, Linn. 

 Herb., but not of Linn., Sp. PI. Roxburgh was apparently not aware that it 

 was a wild plant in Khandesh and Gujarat, nor that it was the type of the most 

 important cottons of India. Under the name G. herbaceum he described the 

 plant now accepted as G. arboretmt, var. negiecta, and linked that with G. 

 Nanking (China and Berar Cottons), but kept all three distinct from G. obtuni- 

 fotiiem. [No plant that could be supposed to correspond with G. obttt*ifiiunt. 

 is, however, mentioned in Linn, Sp. PI. ; in Fl. Zeyl. ; in Burmann, Thes. Zeyl. ; 

 in Rheede, Hort. Mai. ; nor in Rumphius, Herb. Amb., etc., etc.] Lastly, Trimen 

 says there is no indigenous cotton in Ceylon. 



Habitat. A distinctly Oriental species, the various manifestations of which 

 are met with in India, Ceylon, Malay Archipelago, Philippine Islands, Africa and 

 Upper Egypt. I have in India repeatedly collected a Gonsyitivm in a wild or 

 self-sown condition, and was, I believe, the first person definitely to suggest its 

 identity with G. obtuni/olinni. It occurs, for example, here and there all over 

 Kathiawar. It is fairly common in the hedges of Gujarat, and was found by me 

 in Khandesh and in the Deccan. If in all these instances it has to be regarded 

 as but a survival of former cultivation, there would seem every likelihood that 

 in some of its known habitats it has existed in the feral condition for a great many 

 years, perhaps centuries. Further, the plant is perfectly easily recognised from 

 all the other Indian cottons, though certain states of G. Nanking come very 

 near to it indeed, if such instances are not hybrids between the two species. But 

 the plant does not seem to be confined to India and Africa. Vidal collected it in 

 the Island of Ticao, Philippines, and the label attached to his specimen describes 

 it as " wild." So also Dr. A. B. Meyer found it in the Malay Archipelago. 



Cultivated Forms. To distinguish the cultivated forms collectively, of this 

 species, from those of Africa and other parts of the world, it may be useful to 

 group them as embraced under a special Indian variety as follows : 



Var. Wightiana, Watt, I.e. 143-53, tt. 21, 22; G. Wightianum, Todaro, Oss. Sp. 

 dei Cot., 1863, 47-51 ; also Relaz. Cult, dei Cot., 1877, 141-6 (in part), t. iv., 

 ff. 1-9; G. hirsutum, Linn., Syst. Nat., 1767, ii., 462; also in Herb., non Sp. PI. ; 

 G. herbaceum, Linn., var. obtusifolium, Roxb., Wight, Ic., t. 9; Maxwell T. Masters, 

 Fl. Br. Ind., i., 346 (in part) ; G. herbaceum, Aliotta, in Riv. Crit. Gen. Goss., 1903, 

 67 (in part). The so-called Long-staple Cottons of India. 



One of the most remarkable features of this plant is the circumstance that 

 while it is the most valuable of all Indian cottons to-day, it is the one least 

 understood and last of all to have been described by botanists. It is a cultivated 



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