PEDIGREE 3 



This intricacy is shown by cotton at least as much as 

 by any other crop, but only in details. The main out- 

 lines are quite simple in so far as the com- 



c f or y mercial cottons are concerned, especially 

 Characters. 



since some of the most obvious differences 



are really of little importance ; thus, although Tree cotton 

 and Annual cotton would appear to be very primary 

 divisions for the genus, the actual differences are but 

 slight : a difference of a few degrees in the relation of 

 growth to temperature, the constitutional power to 

 develop one lateral bud instead of another, or even 

 a change of district only, and the annual becomes 

 a tree, or conversely. Similarly, the smoothness or 

 " fuzziness " of the seed, which has been ridden to 

 death in some schemes of classification, is almost an 

 accident; various forms of the accidental result happen 

 to be commoner in some species than in others, but 

 naked-seeded forms are known now in all the com- 

 mercial cottons, having probably arisen as sudden 

 "sports." 



In constructing a genealogical tree, we are compelled 

 to take some account of its trunk, or, for our purpose, of 



the primitive cottons; but to do more than 

 Cottoi gl ance at them would carry us into regions 



of controversy. The original ancestor of 

 cotton was probably a. hairy annual plant, with rounded 

 leaves, yellow flowers blotched with crimson and sur- 

 rounded by three green leaves, ripening a fruit divided into 

 five or more compartments, each containing seeds covered 

 with a green felt. Even to postulate such an ancestor 



