10 Forage Plants of Australia. 



OEDEE MALVACE./E. 



GOSSYPIUM STUETII, P. Y. M. 



" Sturt's Cotton Plant." 



Flora Austr., Vol. 7, p. 222. 



A BATHER tall- growing shrub, which is more or less marked all over with 

 black dots. The leaves are ranged in long stalks and are broadly ovate 

 in outline, entire, firm and glaucous ; the latter character often giving 

 the plant a slightly silvery appearance, which is quite a feature in 

 the landscape. The large flowers are arranged on short stalks in the 

 upper leaf axils. At figure I is illustrated an open flower the natural 

 colour of which is purple with a dark centre, each petal being 

 about 2 inches long. The capsule is ovoid, and copiously marked with 

 black dots. The seeds are very sparingly enveloped in wool. This plant 

 is found in the arid interior of Queensland, New South "Wales, and South 

 Australia, but it is not reported to be plentiful anywhere ; although under 

 ordinary circumstances it produces a fair amount of seed, which, when 

 ripe, germinates readily even under adverse circumstances. This plant will 

 flourish even in the driest of seasons, and when the natural grasses 

 fail it affords capital forage for stock; sheep being particularly fond 

 of it, and they will often crop the younger plants so close to the 

 ground that they seldom or never recover, it is a plant that is peculiarly 

 adapted for hot, dry, regions ; in fact, it does not seem to flourish out of 

 such situations. More than one attempt has been made to grow the plant 

 on the coastal side of the Dividing Range, and although it succeeded well 

 during the hot summer months and grew at a rapid rate, still, directly the 

 autumn rains set in the plant looked unhappy, and eventually died. This 

 shrub is closely allied to the true cotton plant of commerce ; but it is hardly 

 likely that it ever will be cultivated as a commercial textile plant, for the 

 cottonny or woolly covering of the seed is not very copious, and unless it 

 could be materially increased by good cultivation it would never pay in a com- 

 mercial sense, This plant is endemic in Australia ; and, so far as hitherto 

 observed, it has not a very wide geographical range on the continent. Like 

 most of its congeners, from the inner bark a fibre can be obtained, but we 

 have never heard that it has been put to any economic use. The cotton of 

 commerce, various forms of which are distributed, either as indigenous or 

 introduced plants, over the warmer regions of both the new and the old 

 world, has not, hitherto, been found in a wild state in Australia. The seeds 

 of this plant should be sown directly they are ripe as they soon seem to 

 lose their germinating powers in places where it is intended to grow the 

 shrubs, as the young plants do not like their roots disturbed and often die 

 when transplanted. 



