PERPETUAL COTIONS OF ANDHRA PRADESH

Abstract

Uncultivated cottons from Kathiawar, Konkan and Bengal and their
specimens are preserved in the British Museum and Edenburg herbarium. It
is believed that a red flowered cotton, a century ago, was abundant and more
important than it is today. Hutchinson et. al. (1947) and Hutchinson (1954)
have described the perennial forms of cotton, closer to the ancestral type. A
brief review of the genetic wealth in Gossypium with special reference to wild
species has been published by Narayanan, (1985). Samba Murthy et. al. (1994)
reported three groups of perennial cottons of Andhra Pradesh. The wild and
cultivated cotton plants of the world has been well compiled and documented
by Watt (1907). The present note gives a brief account of preliminary morphological
aspects of perennial cottons.