The National Collection of Gossypium Germplasm is a group of seven working and one permanent collections maintained at locations in four states. It is a part of the National Germplasm System, and is maintained under Regional Research Project S-77, Preservation an Utilization of Germplasm in Cotton. The purpose of assembling and maintaining materials of the germplasm collection is to preserve and evaluate the stocks for desirable characteristics, and to make this material available for those breeding and other research projects wanting seed of these. The "Collection" includes accessions of primitive stocks, strains, varieties, cytological stocks and genetic marker stocks of Gossypium hirsutum and G. barbadense, and accessions 40 wild diploid an tetraploid Gossypium spp. that are found distributed worldwide in environments that vary from semi-arid to tropical in climate. Represented are almost 6000 accessions from 74 countries and/or political jurisdictions, many of which have been evaluated for one or more of 31 descriptors or characteristics.