Gossypium herbaceum Seeds | Cotton
LATIN NAME: Gossypium herbaceum
COMMON NAME: Cotton
Plant Profile
Gossypium herbaceum is one of the old-world cottons, and it is a small, woody shrub rather than the tall plant of the industrial fields. The leaves are lobed and hairy, the flowers are yellow with a red centre that darkens with age, and the boll that follows splits into four segments of white lint. The seed is covered in short fibres, which is what cotton is.
The species is a diploid, with two sets of chromosomes, and it is one of the A-genome cottons that were domesticated in Africa and in Arabia. It was the cotton of the Mediterranean and of India before the American species took over, and it is still grown in parts of Africa, in Iran and in India for short-staple fibre and for its tolerance of drought and of poor soil.
Science & Biotechnology
The lint is a seed hair, a single elongated cell that dries and twists as the boll opens. The twist is what makes cotton spinnable: as the cell collapses it coils, and the fibres grip each other when twisted into yarn. Short-staple cottons such as this one make coarse, strong yarn for denim, for towels and for industrial cloth, while long-staple cottons make fine shirting.
The seed contains gossypol, a yellow polyphenol that is toxic to monogastric animals and to people, and it is why cottonseed meal is fed mainly to ruminants, which tolerate it. Gossypol also has contraceptive and anticancer activity under study, and it is the reason glandless cotton varieties were bred, so that the seed could be used as a protein food.
Uses & Benefits
The lint is spun into yarn for cloth, and the short fibre is used for denim, for towelling, for canvas and for medical cotton. The seed is pressed for oil, and the meal is fed to cattle. The stalk is used for fuel and for particle board, and the husk for mulch.
In medicine the root bark was used as an abortifacient and as a treatment for menstrual disorders, and the seed was used for coughs. The plant is also grown as an ornamental in dry gardens for the flowers and the bolls, though it is not a garden plant of consequence.
Growing from Seed
Seed should be sown after the last frost, when the soil is warm, at about two centimetres deep. Germination is in one to two weeks. Soak the seed overnight to speed it up, and thin the seedlings to thirty centimetres apart.
The plant wants full sun, a long warm season and a well-drained soil, and it tolerates drought and poor ground. It is killed by frost. It is prone to bollworm and to root rot in wet soil, so rotate it and do not plant it in the same bed two years running. Keep weeds down while the plants are small, since they compete badly at first.
Our Take
An old-world cotton for dry ground and short-staple cloth, and a plant whose seed carries a toxin worth knowing about.
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