PRINCIPLES AND PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE. 61 



(Polyandria.) The first leaves that make their appearance 

 after the cotyledons, three to six are ovate, and indicate cer- 

 tainly the sucker or branch limbs, that will first put out from 

 the stalk. After these, we have the cotton leaf proper, three 

 to five lobed, and mercronate, with one gland upon the mid-rib 

 beneath ; these leaves invariably indicate the arm limb, grow- 

 ing out horizontally, and articulated, forming at each joint one 

 or more balls ; coming out with the arm limb, we have almost 

 invariably a branch limb, with several balls or a stem, with 

 one to three balls. The stalk is Z?,gw?-herbaceous and pu- 

 bescent and in our climate an annual, attaining the height of 

 six to ten feet. The period of flowering is from 10th June to 

 frost ; the calix double, the outer one three-cleft ; capsule 

 three to five celled, with seven to nine seeds in a cell, involved 

 in the staple. Early in the morning the milk-white* bloom 

 may be seen, in the form of a conic scroll, emerging from the 

 fringe-work of its outer calix ; and with the rising sun it un- 

 folds the segments of its petal, and by one hour by sun we 

 behold the full blown bell-formed flower. Thus, blooming 

 white, it remains till twelve o'clock ; when, within fifteen 

 minutes thereafter, we may observe by the naked eye, a faint 

 ray of pink skirting the thin margins of the segments, which 

 pink color may be seen, by one to two o'clock, to have diffused 

 itself throughout the bloom. It thus continues changing from 

 white to red, till sun up the next morning, when it will be 

 found a beautiful brilliant pink : now with the rising sun it 

 gradually wilts, and by twelve o'clock it drops off, leaving a 

 distinctly formed ball, securely sheltered by its calix. 



This description, which is strictly correct, differs in several 

 of its particulars from Eaton's, and from the miserably errone- 

 ous engraving and description of the same, to be found at page 



* The Sea-Island Cotton bloom is yellow. 



