346 xxvi. MALVACE^:. (Maxwell T. Masters.) [Gossypium. 



14. GOSSVPXUBX, Linn. 



Herbs shrubs or low trees. Leaves palmately lobed. Peduncles axillary, 

 1-flowered, jointed. Flowers large, yellow with, or rarely without, a crimson 

 centre, or all purplish. Bracteoles 3, large, leafy, cordate, sprinkled like the 

 calyx with black glandular dots. Calyx cup-shaped, truncate or slightly 

 5-toothed. Petals convolute or spreading. Stominal-tube as in II > 

 Ovary 5-celled ; style clavate, 5-grooved at the apex with five stigmas ; 

 ovules many in each cell. Capsule lt)culicidally 3-5-valved. Seed* densely 

 clothed with woolly hairs ; cotyledons leafy, plicate, sprinkled with black 

 dots. DISTRIB. Tropics of the Old and New World. 



The very numerous forms of this genus are distributed by cultivation throughout the 

 hotter regions of the globe. Their synonymy is extremely complicated, and has 

 the attempts of many authors. Wight and Arnott greatly addi.'d to the confusion by 

 thi-ir attempts to reduce all the varieties to two species, G. album and G. )ii;//->nn. 

 Speaking broadly, it is not difficult to recognise the following forms. G. Stoeklti is 

 wild in Sindh, and may be the primitive form of the cultivated states of G. herbaceum. 



1. Gr. Stocksii, Mast. ; shrubby, branching, leaves palmately 3-5-lobed 

 lobes glabrous oblong obtuse, bracteoles deeply laciiiiate, segments linear 

 lanceolate, cotton yellow adherent to the seeds and with no felted down 

 beneath. 



Limestone rocks on the coasts of Sixrm, truly wild, Stn,- 1 --; I > iJ-ell. 



Bran<-}n'* straggling, diffuse. L<-nrt>x small, rounded with five roundish or oblige 

 lobes, f'loivnr* small, yellow. Capsule ovoid. Cotton not separable from the seed. - 

 It semis probable that this may b >. the wild form of the plant cultivated as (',. In rl>a- 

 << inn, and therefore the parent type of all the forms of Indian cotton. Dal/ell and 

 Gibson (Iiomb. Fl. 21) apparently confound Iloxbnrgh's G. cibtv&ifolium with this 

 plant, which they say is found all over limestone rocks of the Sindh cn;i-t, though the 

 dc.scription thev give does not apply to this, but to the cultivated form of G. lie < < 

 just alluded to. Stocks, indeed, remarks that in cultivation the leaves of this plant 

 assume the appearance of those of G. herbaceum. Roxburgh's G. obtutifolium, uhich 

 he says is a native of ( Vylon, appears, moreover, from his drawing to be a form of 

 G. herbaceum. Thwaites does not mention any species as native of Ceylon. 



G. HERBACEUM, L. ; DC. Prodr. i. 456 ; annual or perennial, hairy or 

 subglabrous, leaf-lobes broadly ovate acuminate, flowers yellow with a 

 purple centre rarely wholly yellow or white or purple, petals spreading, 

 bracteoles not divided below the middle, sometimes entire or nearly so, 

 cotton white or brownish, adherent to the seeds, overlying a grey or greenish 

 down. Roxb. Cor. PL iii. 269 ; /'/. Iwl. iii. Ks4 ; \Vi<jht fc. t. 9, 11 ; RayU ///. 

 t. 23, f. 1 ; Wall. Cat. 1880; Cav. Dis*. vi. 310, t. 164, f. 2 ; Parlatort />>. di 

 Cotoni, p. 31, t. 2; Mast, in Oliv. Fl. Trop. Afr. i. 212. G. indicmn, Lam. 

 Kncyd. ii. 134; DC. Prodr. i. 456. G. album, W. & A.Proa,-. \. B4. 

 G. niicranthum, DC. Prodr. I.e. (in part] ; Royle III. i. Qd.Eheede JJort. 

 Mai. i. t. 31. 



Cultivated ; furnishing the varieties of Indian cotton, such as Dacca and Berar. 



Erect, shrubby, or herbaceous, nearly glabrous or more or less hairy, and with a few 

 scattered glandular points. Leaves cordate, 3-5- rarely 7-lobed, usually with a gland 

 on the under surface of the midrib, titipules ovate-lanceolate, entire or slightly toothed. 

 Peduncles shorter than the petiole. Bracteoles Equalling the capsule. Culij.r. truncate, 

 or obsoletely crenulate, much shorter than the bracteoles. Petals obovate or cimeate. 

 Capsule ovate, globose, mucronate, 3-5-valved. /Seeds 5-7 in each cell, ovoid ; cotton 

 white, rarely yellowish, overlying a greenish or greyish down. 



