Description:

• Shrubs or shrublets, nearly all parts dotted with black oil glands
• Leaves 3-7-lobed to divided, rounded in outline; caducous or persistent; stipules linear to linear-lanceolate
• Flowers solitary, axillary, or in several-flowered, sympodial inflorescences, showy; pedicels without articulation
• Epicalyx of 3, usually foliaceous, persistent bracts
• Calyx cupuliform, truncate
• Petals obovate, with scattered black dots, yellow or purple, often purple at base
• Staminal tube much shorter than petals, densely covered with horseshoe-shaped anthers throughout
• Gynoecium 3-5-locular, with several ovules per locule; style short, undivided; stigma club-shaped, rarely slightly separating at tip
• Fruit a loculicidally dehiscent capsule with several seeds per locule
• Seeds narrowly ellipsoid, with dense, long, woolly hairs (lint or floss), often also with fuzz (a shorter, denser indumentum), sometimes nearly glabrous
• x = 13 (12) (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Gossypium L.
  • Linnaeus: 693 (1753)
  • Exell: 428 (1960)
  • Exell: 8 (1969)
  • Vollesen: 337 (1987)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 39, worldwide in tropics and warm temperate regions; several species cultivated
• Southern Africa: Species 3, N Namibia, N Botswana, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland and KwaZulu-Natal