COTTON SPECIES 275 



as the square. The leaves are alternate, and the veining 

 of the leaves begins at a common point near the base of 

 the leaf blade; that is, the leaves are palmately veined. 



The genus, or subdivision of a family, to which the cotton 

 plant belongs, is Gossypium. In this genus the stigmas, 

 grown together, usually number three to five, according to 

 the number of locks which will be contained in the mature 

 fruit or boll. The leaves are lobed, the size and shape of 

 the lobes varying in the different species. 



249. Principal species of cotton. — Botanists differ 

 widely as to the number of species of Gossypium and as to 

 the name that should be applied to certain species. More- 

 over, some cultivated cottons are crosses or hybrids be- 

 tween two species, thus increasing the difficulty of properly 

 naming each kind. For example, until recent years it was 

 customary to refer to the present commonly grown upland 

 cotton of the United States as Gossypium herbaceum, a 

 name, now given to one of the Asiatic cottons. Watt 

 ("Wild and Cultivated Cotton Plants of the World") 

 assumes that for a time the early colonists did grow this 

 species in Virginia, but that before cotton became an 

 important crop it was displaced by the present type of 

 American upland cotton; the former, he thinks, still 

 influences American upland cotton through its hybrids. 

 The latest investigators favor the name Gossypium hir- 

 sutum, to include both the ordinary or short-staple cotton 

 of the United States and also the long-staple upland cotton 

 of this country. 



As many as fifty-four species of Gossypium have been 

 described and named, but most botanists reduce the species 

 to a much smaller number. 



