Gossypium arboreum L.

Shrub/ Small tree

Flowering & Fruiting: August-February

Shrubs, ca. 1.5-3 m tall; young branches purple pubescent with stellate and few simple hairs, glabrescent. Leaves simple, alternate, spiral; stipules liner to lanceolate, often flacate; petioles ca. 1.5-18 cm long, puberulent and villous; lamina ca. 3-13 x 3.5-12 cm, palmately lobed to palmatifid, ovate or orbicular or oblong segments, lobes subrotundate to triangular, cordate at base, acute at apex, crenate to dentate, secondary nerves 5-7 pairs. Flowers solitary, axillary or in terminal racemes by reduction of upper leaves; Epicalyx segments large ovate, subentire or toothed, cordate at base, acute at apex; calyx ca. 5 mm long, cupular, somewhat 5-dentate; corolla ca. 3-4 cm long, pale yellow with or without purple centre, and sometimes entirely purple; staminal tube ca. 1.5-2 cm long, antheriferous. Capsules ca. 1.5-3 cm in diam., depressed globose, pubescent, enclosed by calyx; mericarps 20-40, ca. 4 mm across, longitudinally sulcate. Seeds 5-8 per cell, ca. 5-8 mm in diam., free, ovoid, with dense covering of long woolly white or rusty hairs.

Undershrubs, 1-2 m;. Leaves 3-lobed. Flowers axillary, solitary, sub-sessile. Epicalyx segments free. Sepals 1.5-3.8cm, red, fleshy.

Notes: Western Ghats, Cultivated

Cultivated

Throughout Assam

Common

Threats recoded

It is found growing wild in the tropical forest

Main source of cotton, oil-cake and oil, etc. from the seeds of the plant.