Autumnal Wild Cotton

Growing Native with Petey Mesquitey

I use the common name wild cotton, but here are some other common names: Thurber’s cotton, desert cotton, and algodoncillo. Your choice, but if in doubt try Gossypium thurberi. I think it’s interesting that in the Southwestern US Gossypium thurberi occurs only in Arizona, but then, southward across the border into the Mexican states of Sonora, Chihuahua and Jalisco. The photos are mine and of an illustration by Lucretia Breazeale Hamilton taken from Benson and Darrow’s Plants of the Southwest Deserts. Her beautiful illustrations are found in so many of my favorite plant books. And yes, that’s my shadow in…