346 XXVI. MALVACE^. (Maxwell T. Masters.) [Gpssypium. 



14. GOSSYPZVXn, 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 

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

 5-toothed. Petafe convolute or spreading. Staminal-tuhe as in Hibiscus. 

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

 ovules many in each cell. Capsule loculicidally 3-5-valved. Seeds densely 

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

 dots.— DisTEiB. Tropics of the Old and New World. 



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

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

 the attempts of many authors. Wight and.Arnott greatly added to the confusion by 

 their attempts to reduce all the varieties to two species, O. album and G. nigrum. 

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

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



1. G. Stocksll, Mast. ; shrubby, branching, leaves palmately 3-5-lobed 

 lobes glabrous oblong obtuse, bracteoles deeply laciuiate, segments linear 

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

 beneath. 



Limestone rooks on the coasts of Sindh, truly wild, Stocks ; Dahell. 



Branches straggling, diffuse. Leaves small, rounded with five roundish or obtuse 

 lobes. Mowers small, yellow. Capsule ovoid. Cotton not separable from the seed. — 

 It seems probable that this may be the wild form of the plant cultivated as G. herha- 

 cevm, and therefore the parent type of all the forms of Indian cotton. Dalzell and 

 Gibson (Bomb. Fl. 21) apparently confound Roxburgh's G. ohtusifolium with this 

 plant, which they say is found all over limestone rocks of the Sindh coast, though the 

 description they give does not apply to this, but to the cultivated form of G. herbacevm 

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

 assume the appearance of those of G. herhaceMm. Eoxburgb's-G. obtvsifoliv/m, which 

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

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



G. HERBACEtTM, 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 purpl,e, 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. Roocb.Cor. PI. iii. 269; Fl.Ind. iii. 184; Wight Ic. t. 9, 11 ; lioylelll. 

 t. 23, f. 1 ; Wall. Oat. 1880; Gav. Diss. vi. 310, t- 164, f. 2 ; Parlatore Sp. di 

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

 Encyd.ii. 134; 1)C. Prod/r. i. 456. G. album, W. & A. Prodr. i. 54. 

 G. micranthum, DC. Prodr. I.e. '{in part) ; Royle III. i. 49. — Rheede Hort. 

 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. Stipules ovate-lanceolate, entire or slightly toothed. 

 Pei^MncZes shorter than the petiole. Bracteoles equalling the capsule. CaZja: truncate , 

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

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

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



