Bombaz. MONADELPHIA DODECANDRIA, 169 
» The wood is white, light and spongy, fit for very few pur- 
poses. In India the wool is used to stuff beds and pillows, 
and to put between the folds of quilted cloth, 
3. B. gossypinum, Willd. iii. 732. 
-Arboreous, unarmed. Leaves five-lobed ; flowers pani- 
cled, polyandrous, Capsu/e sub-globular, Snes lohed, 
Teling. Kong. 
A large beautiful tree, a native of the ae mountains, it 
is also ulestated.i in gardens on many parts of the coast.’ 
Leaves deciduous during the cold season, The flowers 
appear about the beginning of the hot season, at which time 
the tree is destitute of leaves, but they soon succeed the 
flowers. Trunk erect, from eight to eighteen feet high, of- 
ten much thicker than a man’s body; the head is large in 
proportion to the trunk, aud very branchy. Bark smooth, 
ash-coloured, Leaves scattered about the ends of the branch- 
Jets, from three to five-lobed, above pretty smooth, below 
covered with whitish down, with the Jobes entire, acute. I ne- 
ver could observe any thing like a gland on any part of the 
under nor upper side. Petioles as long as the leaves, that 
is from two to eight inches, downy. Séipu/es linear, acute, — 
caducous, lowers terminal, numerous, sub-panicled, very 
large, of a bright yellow. Bractes stipule-like, and caducous. 
Calyx five-leaved ; leaflets oblong, concave. Petals five, 
obliquely obovate, obliquely and deeply emarginate, or ra- 
ther cleft, spreading, embracing one another, as in the con- 
torted plants. Filaments numerous, short, distinct as in many 
of the polyandrous plants. Axthers linear, nearly as long 
as the filaments, Germ above globular, Style rather longer 
than the stamens, but considerably bent to one side, Stigma 
simple, Capsule broad turbinate, as large as a goose-egg, 
five-lobed, five-celled, five-valved. Weede numerous, iidaey- 
shaped, woolly, 
The cotton is of a soft, silky nature, not emiphaed fur any 
~ £F90L, BE Vv 
