Habit: Annual to perennial herb, [subshrub to tree], +- gland-dotted.
Stem: erect, stellate-hairy to glabrous.
Leaf: petioled; blades ovate, palmate-lobed or -parted, entire; generally not much reduced above; stipules prominent or not.
Inflorescence: flowers 1 in leaf axils or few clustered on axillary short-shoots; flowering stalks generally < flowers; bractlets 3, conspicuous, green, leaf-like, cordate, generally irregularly toothed or fringed, enclosing flower in bud, persisting in fruit.
Flower: calyx fused, tip truncate or 5-toothed; petals cream, yellow, or rose, often with dark spot at base, showy; filament tube 5-toothed at top, anthers scattered entire length; style 1, generally >= filament tube, stigma lobes 3--5, decurrent, generally short or obscure.
Fruit: capsule, loculicidal, ovoid, 3--5-chambered, glabrous, generally prominently gland-dotted.
Seed: generally > 5 mm, obovoid, angled, generally densely long-hairy [(subglabrous)], hairs generally white [tan].
Species In Genus: 40 species: tropics, subtropics, most Africa, Middle East, Australia, America.
Etymology: (Greek:
gossypion, cotton; or Arabic:
goz or
gothn, a soft substance)
Note: Gossypium armourianum Kearney (bractlets strap-shaped vs widely cordate-ovate in
Gossypium hirsutum), reportedly naturalized in California, in fact only persisting (albeit for at least 70 years) after plantings, and showing "little likelihood of spreading or becoming invasive" (Paul Fryxell, pers. comm.).
Jepson eFlora Author: Paul A. Fryxell
Reference: Fryxell 1979 Natural History Cotton Tribe. TAMU Press; Fryxell 1988 Syst Bot Monogr 25:159--178
Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)
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