32 WEEVIL-EESISTING ADAPTATIONS OF COTTON. 



bracts to moisten the edges of the involucre. As yet, however, the 

 purpose of these adaptations in the Asiatic cottons is entirely 

 unknown, both the boll weevil and the kelep being absent in the 

 Eastern Hemisphere. 



The botanical homology of the inner nectaries is somewhat different 

 from that of the outer. They correspond in all probability with the 

 nectaries which are found on the calyx of some of the species of 

 Hibiscus, but there the calyx is large and covers the buds and each 

 sepal bears a nectary near its middle. 



NECTARIES OF GUATEMALAN SEA ISLAND COTTON. 



A variety of Kidney cotton planted in small quantities by the 

 Indians at Trece Aguas. Guatemala, has the outer nectaries very 

 variable in size and commonly quite wanting. The inside necta- 

 ries seem always to be developed and are unusually large, being ex- 

 ceeded, as far as known, only 03^ those of the Asiatic varieties. The 

 nectar secretion is also very abundant. Xo weevils were found upon 

 this cotton, nor any keleps. 



On the other hand, the free-seeded Sea Island cotton found by 

 Mr. Kinsler in the San Lucas h neighborhood, not far from the 

 kelep cotton culture of Secanquim, reverses again the tendency of the 

 Kidney cotton to the great development of the inner nectaries and 

 the suppression of the outer. The latter are, in the San Lucas cotton, 

 nearly always present, of rather large size, and of a red color. The 

 inner nectaries are often rudimentary or quite absent. 



CONTINUED SECRETION OF NECTAR. 



Our Upland varieties conunonly secrete nectar only at the time of 

 flowering, but in the Kekchi cotton the liquid continues to exude 

 until the boll is nearly or quite full grown, thus securing the protec- 



a This variety not infrequently produces flowers with only two bracts, closely 

 oppressed, like a clam shell. In one such instance there were two nectaries at the 

 base of each bract, or. to be more exact, two separate nectaries on one side and 

 one partly divided nectary on the other, as though the nectary belonging to the 

 deficient third bract had separated into two parts and joined the other necta- 

 ries. 



6 This San Lucas Sea Island cotton is probably the variety in which the 

 weevils were found abundant in 1902. when the first intimation was gained 

 that the Kekchi cotton had means of protection against the weevil. The San 

 Lucas cotton is attacked not only by weevils, but by another long-bodied in- 

 sect larva, evidently lepidopterous. that gnaws through the boll at the ends, 

 both from above and below, and eats out the seeds. Nothing of the sort has 

 been seen in the fields protected by the keleps. There was also noticed in this 

 cotton an occasional abnormality closely comparable to the navel orange. 

 Rudimentary parts like a small secondary boll were found in the middle of 

 bolls otherwise normal. The orange tree and the cotton plant belong, it may 

 be remembered, to related families. 



