Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Cotton Balls

There is a spindly little plant struggling for a hold in the sandy soil of the Windy Hill hillside that, from the flowers, I could almost think is a cotton plant. From a quick google image search, the leaf shape seems accurate, so perhaps it is cotton.

























My quick snap while driving doesn't provide a clear image of the flowers, which are definitely fuzzy little balls, like cotton bolls.

Although plantations in the Virgin Islands were primarily sugar cane, there are records that indicate that more arid, sandy soil was planted in cotton instead, in order to maximize profits, so perhaps this little bush is a remnant of a previous era

1 comment:

  1. The bolls themselves look fairly accurate for cotton, but never saw such a spindly looking plant. The "hulls" around the bolls are the right colro too and hurt your hands like the dickens when you are trying to pick the cotton out of them!

    ReplyDelete

Search This Blog