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Tree cotton

Gossypium arboreum

Tree cotton
Photo: KENPEI, CC BY-SA 3.0

Tree cotton is a shrub or small tree native to India and Sri Lanka, grown since ancient times for cotton fibre. It is a species of cotton that suits warm, seasonally dry tropical climates.

Family
Malvaceae (Mallow family)
Grows as
Tree, Shrub
Light
Full sun
Water
Water deeply, then let the top of the soil dry out before watering again; it tolerates seasonal drought.
Soil
Well-drained, moderately fertile soil; sandy loam is ideal.
Temperature
18–35 °C; protect below 10 °C
How easy
Moderate
Native range
India, Sri Lanka
Climate
seasonally dry tropical

About

Gossypium arboreum, commonly called tree cotton, is a species of cotton native to India and Sri Lanka. There is evidence of its cultivation as long ago as the Indus Valley Civilisation of the Indus River for the production of cotton textiles. The shrub was included in Linnaeus's Species Plantarum published in 1753. The holotype was also supplied by him, which is now in the Linnean Herbarium in the Swedish Museum of Natural History.

Other Gossypium plants

African Wild Cotton · Creole cotton · Levant cotton · Upland cotton · Hawai'ian cotton · Cotton

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Gossypium arboreum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

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