Gossypium hirsutumL.

Cottonupland cotton

WFO wfo-0000707931 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Gossypium hirsutum, photographed by Tyler Bishop
fig. a Tyler Bishop, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-15 / obs. 197983017
Gossypium hirsutum, photographed by Tyler Bishop
fig. b Tyler Bishop, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197982917
Gossypium hirsutum, photographed by Francisco Farriols Sarabia
fig. c Francisco Farriols Sarabia, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 191993135
Gossypium hirsutum, photographed by aacocucci
fig. d aacocucci, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 182911941
Gossypium hirsutum, photographed by Catherine C. Galley
fig. e Catherine C. Galley, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 180831581
Gossypium hirsutum, photographed by Bill Levine
fig. f Bill Levine, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 175518298
Gossypium hirsutum, photographed by Sebastián de Jesús Herrera Buenfil
fig. g Sebastián de Jesús Herrera Buenfil, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 173281015
Gossypium hirsutum, photographed by Josiah Londerée
fig. h Josiah Londerée, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 172011189

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
205515
Filed as
Gossypium hirsutum L.
Det. by
F. Jiménez Rodríguez 2007-04-10
Collected
I. Vandebroek 2007-02-03
Origin
US
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 29 botanical countries

Regions where Gossypium hirsutum is native: Mexican Pacific Is., Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Fiji, Marianas, Marquesas, Samoa, Society Is., Tuamotu, Aruba, Brazil Northeast, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Southwest Caribbean, Suriname, Venezuela, Venezuelan Antilles Mexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestFijiBrazil NortheastColombiaCosta RicaEcuadorEl SalvadorFrench GuianaGuatemalaGuyanaHondurasNicaraguaSouthwest CaribbeanSurinameVenezuela MarianasMarquesasSamoaSociety Is.TuamotuArubaNetherlands AntillesVenezuelan Antilles
Native distribution of Gossypium hirsutum, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Aruba ARU SOUTHERN AMERICA
Brazil Northeast BZE
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Ecuador ECU
El Salvador ELS
French Guiana FRG
Guatemala GUA
Guyana GUY
Honduras HON
Netherlands Antilles NLA
Nicaragua NIC
Southwest Caribbean SWC
Suriname SUR
Venezuela VEN
Venezuelan Antilles VNA
Mexican Pacific Is. MXI NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Central MXC
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS
Fiji FIJ PACIFIC
Marianas MRN
Marquesas MRQ
Samoa SAM
Society Is. SCI
Tuamotu TUA

Not drawn on the map: Mexican Pacific Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 68 in flower of 134 examined

Peak flowering in Feb. Each bar is the share of Gossypium hirsutum observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 68 of 134 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 2 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,345 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 2.9 °C 18.6 °C 24.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 28.0 °C 29.8 °C 35.7 °C
Annual rainfall 223 mm 1,152 mm 1,924 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 2 mm 123 mm 257 mm

It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,345 research-grade observations of Gossypium hirsutum that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 106 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Gossypium barbadense var. hirsutum (L.) Hook.f. & Benth.
  • Gossypium barbadense var. hirsutum (L.) Triana & Planch.
  • Gossypium barbadense var. marie-galante (G.Watt) A.Chev.
  • Gossypium birkinshawii G.Watt
  • Gossypium caespitosum Tod.
  • Gossypium cavanillesianum Tod.
  • Gossypium divaricatum Raf.
  • Gossypium harrisii G.Watt
  • Gossypium herbaceum var. hirsutum (L.) Mast.
  • Gossypium herbaceum var. religiosum (L.) Mast.
  • Gossypium hirsutum Cav.
  • Gossypium hirsutum f. atrocoloratum Roberty
  • Gossypium hirsutum f. berlandieri Roberty
  • Gossypium hirsutum f. cavelsenii Roberty
  • Gossypium hirsutum f. cearense (Roberty) Roberty
  • Gossypium hirsutum f. gaumeri Roberty
  • Gossypium hirsutum f. guatemaltequense Roberty
  • Gossypium hirsutum f. jamaicense (Macfad.) Wouters
  • Gossypium hirsutum f. mexicanum (Tod.) Roberty
  • Gossypium hirsutum f. palmeri (G.Watt) Wouters
  • Gossypium hirsutum f. pollardii Roberty
  • Gossypium hirsutum f. prostratum (Schumach. & Thonn.) Roberty
  • Gossypium hirsutum f. punctatum (Schumach. & Thonn.) Roberty
  • Gossypium hirsutum f. schottii (G.Watt) Wouters

and 82 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.