UPLAND AND GEORGIAN COTTONS 



GOSSYPIUM 



PURPURASCENS 



Bourbon Cotton 



all til.- Aiu.-n. an and African cultivated cottons that possess seeds more or less 



\\iih ft velvet or fuzz (e.g. tt. /i<ri<rn. - .. .<iui and G. . 

 ,.. ) ha\c the leaves more or less pilose, while the form* with sub-glabrous 

 leaves (e.g. <. imi-im > . , ,/i/.,;/,<m ami . (-f>><n.ir) have the seeds 

 .illv naked ; that is to say, they do not possess a fu/./.. 



G. mexicanum, Tod., Relaz. Cult, dei Cot., 193, tt. vi., xii., f. 32 ; Upland 



I.,-. L'LM; 11. tt. 39-42. This hybrid species is often very difficult and 

 to separate from ft'. />//>// /**///* when in foliage.. The leaves are 



broad, smooth, glabrescent with five to seven radiating veins and lobes ; 

 peduncles prolonged, pedicels short and flowers small, pale-coloured, 



nodding; seeds large, with thin ashy fuzz, and copious woolly floss. 

 Apparently originally procured from Mexico, but so far as known is met 

 with under cultivation only. 



Roxburgh tells us that this was introduced into India by W. Hamilton in Introduction 



1804, but subsequently he seems to have confused it with Bourbon Cotton (a. lnto IndU. 



M>i-wrrii), and gave both plants the botanical name of tt. i !/ !, Willd., 

 -incr both his MS. drawings (so named) are in reality tt. -*<< IMI. He 

 further apparently alludes to this plant under tt. iii-*fni as being grey- 

 seeded. Wight, Spry and many other Indian writers refer to Mexican Cotton 

 in the Journals of the Agri. -Horticultural Society. 



1 1 has, however, to be admitted that some uncertainty exists as to the plant Mexican Cotton. 

 Todaro actually meant by the name tt. iM-<rium. If his coloured illustra- 

 tion he accepted arbitrarily as the type, then it has to be confessed that it is 

 not very plentiful in herbaria. In all the samples seen by me that approach 



aost closely to that type, the plants either came from Mexico or were raised 

 seed procured from that country, as Todaro affirms was the case with the 



t'ant figured and described by him. But in all the best tracts of America, from Hybrids, 

 which the finest Upland and Georgian Cottons are procured, the plant there 

 jwn is almost exactly intermediate between the type of tt. Mrmittun and 

 it of G. iiK-jriritnuin. The li-avi-s are large and broad in fully-formed con- 

 ditions, are 5-, sometimes even 7-lobed or only angled. In texture they are 

 smooth, thick, leathery and either very hairy (in forms that approach to tt. itir- 

 xii tn in) or almost quite glabrous (in those with a closer approximation to 

 *.. ,,,,-ri,',, ,,,,,,,). In the United States fresh stock has again and again been 

 imported from Mexico, and the admission made that the previously existing 

 stocks had been thereby much improved. There would thus seem little doubt 

 that the improvement that has been consistently reported as taking place has 

 run parallel with an undoubted advancement from the older type of G. nintiitiim 

 towards that which more appropriately should (from the botanical standpoint) 

 be designated tt. i-jri>iu. But they are one and all hybrids, and the 

 suggestion may be offered that they have been derived from tt. iii,-ntn,i, 

 as the one stock, and either tt. inirpMr<t*rfnn or tt. ri/i/oHm (tt. h<iii><,<im*,) 

 the other the result being the presumed hybrid condition here designated 

 .. ,, ,,<i,,,, in, . Of the more famed cottons of this assemblage, the following 

 may be specially mentioned as (a) hairy (e.g. off. G. ttimtitmn) forms: Special Rcs. 

 " Allen," " Peeler," " Sunflower," " Todd " and " Russell." Of the (6) glabrous 

 (off. G. i,,< , i,,i, ,,): " Welborn's Pet," " Willet's Red Leaf," "Parker," 

 " Layton's Improved," " Toale," " Shine," " Simms," " Berry's Big Boll," 



Culpepper," " Cummings," " Triumph," " Gibson," " Myers " and " Texas 

 Wool." Reversions are also recorded, one example of which may be here speci- 

 ally mentioned, namely " King's Improved," which comes closer to tt. jmiir- King's 



than to the bulk of the modern tt. nejH-iniM cottons that to-day Improved, 

 are called by the old, but now hardly accurate name of tt. itit-mttnin. Another 

 "lustration is the tendency for green-seeded stock (tt. iiii-mittim type proper) 



o produce brown or grey-seeded forms (tt. im-j-ictuutni) according as the degree 

 jf cultivation or neglect tends to develop and establish the one or other ancestor 

 the present-day much hybridised stock of Upland cottons. 



Naked-seeded Cottons of the New World. The following, among 

 >ther species, may be specially mentioned in this position : 



G. purpurascens, Poir., Lamk., Encycl. Aleth. Bot. suppl, 1811, Bourbon 

 ii., 369 ; Watt, I.e. 250-5, t. 44. A cultivated perennial plant of which Cotton. 



587 



