302 VOYAGE OF H.M.S. HERALD. 
will do so for ever. I have however seen in fields of ** Owú,” or com- 
mon Cotton, plants not to be distinguished by the most minute exa- 
mination, and yet bearing a fine snowy-white silky cotton of good 
staple, and the seed covered with white longish fuzz. 
5. Fedofa.—Several people have described this cotton to me as being 
of fine quality, and the plant having small leaves; but whether it be 
merely a quality of cotton, a variety, or a species, I do not know to 
any certainty. 
Having given the characters of the “ Cottons” found in this part of 
Africa, I shall now, in great diffidence and in the absence of proper 
works of botanical reference and adequate botanical skill and experience, 
endeavour to assign the proper scientific name to each. It appears to 
me that the * Red-flowered Akese” is the Gossypium arboreum, but in 
nearly all the capsules I have examined there are six, or more generally 
seven seeds, instead of four or five, as described in the characters of 
Gossypium. arboreum, given in Dr. Royle's work. The Cotton also 
appears to me to be without any yellowness of tinge, but, on the con- 
trary, brilliantly white. The leaf also strongly resembles that in the 
.. drawing of the Gossypium Indicum by Colonel Sykes, and also in that 
of Dr. Roxburgh's (pl. iii) of the Dacca Cotton, in the same work; 
and Colonel Sykes’ sketch of the G. Indicum also much resembles the 
port and habit of the ** Red Akese ;” but the serrated and laciniated 
involucel of both his figures are widely different from the tridentate 
and otherwise all but entire outer bracts of the former plant. The 
.. rounded short-pointed capsule in the drawing of Colonel Sykes is also 
.. very different from the very pointed ovate capsule of the “ Red Akese.” 
~ The “Yellow Akese” appears to be the Gossypium Indicum, Lam. 
: (G. herbaceum, Linn.), or that variety with the lobes rounded and 
mucronate, and the external bracts dentato-laciniate, There also the 
seeds are six or seven, instead of five, as given in Dr. Royle's work. 
[he Fawn-coloured or Brown Cotton appears to be Gossypium religio- 
sum of writers, from the colour and its permanence (?) when cultivated ; 
. Of the * Owü," or Common Cotton, Gossypium Barbadense, I do not 
. doubt we possess both the “Sea Island " and the “ Upland ” varieties, 
: but further investigation is required. Of the Owü Yauwure of Mr. 
Crowther I know nothing, unless it be the Red-flowered Akeshe. 
- Aké, Abbeokuta, February, 855. 
