USE OF NUMERICAL TAXONOMY TO COMPARE MOCO COTTON WITH OTHER COTTON SPECIES AND RACES

'Moco'' Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum r. marie galante Hutch), is grown i n Northeastern Brazil, but its origin is unknown. The objective of our study was to compare moco with other cotton species and races to clar ify its origin and botanical classification. The study was conducted o n G. hirsutum r. marie galante Hutch (exotic), G. barbadense var. bras iliense, the ''verdao'' (green) types of G. hirsutum L., and the cotto n plants generally known under the moco name and represented by cream fiber, Francisco Raimundo; ''moco, das Serras'' (highland moco) from t he Serido Valley, ''mocozinho'', and, finally, improved moco. The vari ables chosen for study were leaf, bract, and newer traits measured in five plants selected at random before flowering. The methodology consi sted of the use of cluster analysis, principal coordinates, canonical discriminant analysis and linear discriminant functions. The results f avor the hypothesis that the moco cotton lineage consists of several t runks rather than a single one, and that the ''marie galante'' race is one of them.