Cotton

Wild Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) is one of the most widely grown cultivated plants in world, but it is on the endangered species list in the state of Florida. Also known as Upland Cotton, Wild cotton is an ancestor of the domestic cotton widely grown in the United States and at one time was quite plentiful in Florida, especially in the Keys.

Cotton blooms with a pink flower bud that unfurls into a white flower with creamy pale yellow undertones and a bright yellow center. Once the flower has been pollinated and falls away, a green hardened capsule forms called a boll. Inside the bole, white fibers of cotton form as well as seeds of the cotton plant.

Cotton was a huge American industry at the turn of the last century, and much was done to protect the crops of the south from infestations of insects that could destroy crops. In about 1892 the boll weevil entered the US through southern Texas and began a rapid spread throughout the cotton belt. By 1922, 85% of the cotton crops of the cotton belt had been infected by the tiny insect that would bore into the unopened cotton bolls (where the cotton fibers form) and keep the fibers from proper development.

In 1932, when the pink boll weevil of the Caribbean was found in populations of Florida cotton, the government took quick action to eradicate cotton from Florida before the pink boll weevil could make its way north to the cultivated cotton crops of the deep south. As part of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs, the WPA (Works Progress Administration) was formed to help create jobs for Americans during the great depression. The WPA was dispatched to Florida and began employing locals. In the Keys, grids were cut into the islands so that the Cotton Gangs could better search for and totally destroy all cotton plants that were found.

In Florida, cotton can grow as a true perennial forming heavy woody branches and becoming a leggy shrub or even grown into a small tree. In the MOSI gardens we have two cotton plants that bloom with their gorgeous pale yellow flowers throughout the summer and then develop their cotton bolls which pop open in late fall to show the fluffy cotton that has grown inside.

The plants are currently still bearing flowers and also have bolls that are opening. The soft cotton fibers are fun for craft projects, testing fabric dyes, and are apparently fairly cozy. On damp mornings I have found frogs nestled into the opened bolls, because who couldn’t resist such a fluffy bed? I actually managed to get a photograph of one such frog who has been affectionately entitled ‘Snuggle, the cotton frog’.

Cotton is a larval host plant for several species of moth larvae such as the Cotton Moth (Alabama argillacea) and the Cotton Bollworm (Helicoverpa zea) which are considered agricultural pests in areas where cotton is grown commercially.

Although it has nothing to do with butterflies, Wild Cotton tells part of the story of Florida and its agricultural past that has always been intertwined with and perhaps at the mercy of so many tiny insects.