PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SEEDS. 403 



works are illustrated with magnificent coloured plates. 

 Nothing better can be desired for the cultivated cottons. 

 On the other hand, our knowledge of the true species, 

 I mean of those which exist naturally in a wild state, 

 has not increased as much as it might. However, the 

 definition of species seems fairly accurate in the works 

 of Dr. Masters, 1 whom I shall therefore follow. This 

 author agrees with Parlatore in admitting seven well- 

 known species and two doubtful, while Todaro counts 

 fifty-four, of which only two are doubtful, reckoning as 

 species forms with some distinguishing character, but 

 which originated and are preserved by cultivation. 



The common names of the cottons give no assistance ; 

 they are even calculated to lead us completely astray as 

 to the origin of the species. A cotton called Siamese 

 comes from America ; another is called Brazilian or Ava 

 cotton, according to the fancy or the error of cultivators. 



We will first consider Gossypium herbaceum, an 

 ancient species in Asiatic plantations, and now the com- 

 monest in Europe and in the United States. In the 

 hot countries whence it came, its stem lasts several years, 

 but out of the tropics it becomes annual from the effect 

 of the winter's cold. The flower is generally yellow, with 

 a red centre; the cotton yellow or white, according to 

 the variety. Parlatore examined in herbaria several 

 wild specimens, and cultivated others derived from wild 

 plants of the Indian Peninsula. He also admits it to be 

 indigenous in Burmah and in the Indian Archipelago, 

 from the specimens of collectors, who have not perhaps 

 been sufficiently careful to verify its wild character. 



Masters regards as undoubtedly wild in Sindh a form 

 which he calls Gossypium Stocksii, which he says is 

 probably the wild condition of Gossypium herbaceum, 

 and of other cottons cultivated in India for a long time, 

 Todaro, who is not given to uniting many forms in a 

 single species, nevertheless admits the identity of this 

 variety with the common G. herbaceum. The yellow 

 colour of the cotton is then the natural condition of the 



1 Masters, in Oliver, Fl. Trop. Afr., i. p. 210 ; and in Sir J. Hooker, 

 Fl. Brit. Ind., i. p. 346. 



