Sea Island Cotton

Subshrubs or shrubs, perennial, 2-3 m tall, hairy or only hairy on petiole and veins on abaxial surface. Branchlets dark purple, angular. Stipules lanceolate-falcate, ca. 10 mm, usually caducous; petiole longer than leaf blade, with black glandular spots; leaf blade 3-5-lobed, 7-12 cm in diam., lobes ovate, oblong, oblong-lanceolate, or obovate, more than 1/2 as long as blade, central lobe longer, lateral lobes usually extending, base cordate, apex long acuminate. Flowers terminal or axillary. Pedicel usually shorter than petiole, stellate villous, with black glandular spots. Epicalyx lobes 5 or more, free, broadly ovate, 3.5-5 cm, base rounded-cordate, 10-15-toothed, teeth 3-4 × as long as wide. Calyx cup-shaped, truncate, with black glandular spots. Corolla pale yellow, purple or crimson in center, funnelform; petals 5-8 cm, stellate villous abaxially. Staminal column 3.5-4 cm, glabrous; filaments closely appressed, upper ones longer. Capsule 3(or 4)-celled, oblong to oblong-ovoid, 3-7 cm, with obvious glandular spots abaxially, base larger, apex acute to beaked. Seeds black and smooth when hair fallen, free or aggregated, ovoid, ca. 8 mm, beaked, with white wool and easily detached short fuzz on one or both tips. Fl. summer-autumn.

South America. Cultivated throughout the tropics.

Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Yunnan [India; Africa (Egypt), tropical Asia, North America (United States), Pacific islands, tropical South America].

300-600 m

Cultivated; below 1500 m.