SECTION II: G. NANKING 117 



In the Edinburgh Herbarium there are several interesting specimens, 

 of which mention may be made of the following, in amplification of the 

 above citations : CHINA, from the Hills, Peking, collected by W. E. Carles 

 in 1882, also from Shanghai, by the same collector, in 1884 ; from Macao 

 and the islands adjacent, by the Rev. G. H. Vachell, collected in Gardens 

 in 1830 ; from East Central AFRICA, collected by G. Schweinfurth, n. 779. 



In the Cambridge University Herbarium the following, among other 

 specimens, may be mentioned : CHINA : Macao, coll. Vachell in 1830, n. 285 

 (ex herb. Lindley) ; duplicate of ditto, with the following note : ' It is this 

 cotton that the brown Nankeen cloth is made of in China ' (ex herb. 

 Henslow) ; also a sheet determined by Bentham as G. obtusifolium, Boxb., 

 and said to be obtained H.B.C. ( = ' Hort. Bot. Calcutensis,' ex herb. 

 Lemann). 



In the Herbarium of the Eoyal Botanic Gardens, Sibpur, Calcutta, Indian 

 there are preserved two examples of a cotton which Mr. I. H. Burkill (' Mem. speci- 

 Dept. Agri. in Ind.,' i., No. 4) regards as the types of G. obtusifolium, Boxb. D !ns ' 

 Neither bears any date. One was identified by the late S. Kurz (formerly 

 curator of the Herbarium, who died in 1878), and the other, I believe, by 

 the gardener who cut and dried the specimens, both being named G. obtusi- 

 folium. But these are in no sense Eoxburghian specimens and are identically 

 the same, each sheet containing two twigs, one possibly a young shoot, the 

 other an old flowering branch. They moreover match in every detail 

 a specimen in the Kew Herbarium, which has been determined as G. 

 obtusifolium, but in that case the record of its origin exists. Seed had 

 been procured from Kabul, and the plant was grown in Calcutta in 1836 

 (see PI. No. 17 B). I have little doubt this is the history also of the 

 two Calcutta specimens, and in that case I regard them (like the Kew 

 example) as being G. Nanking, var. rubicunda, or closely allied thereto 

 a plant with red not yellow flowers (cf. Red-flowered Trans-Indus plants, 

 p. 125). 



In support of this view I may mention that in the Cambridge Herbarium 

 there is a sheet (also said to be from H.B.C.) which belonged originally to 

 Lemann (who died in 1852), and which Bentham determined as G. obtusi- 

 folium, which seems to me to have been also very possibly derived from 

 the Kabul stock. Lastly, in the Edinburgh Herbarium there is a specimen 

 of typical G. Nanking that bears Roxburgh's name (as if procured from 

 him), and which is named G. herbaceum the name Roxburgh himself 

 gave to a Nankin cotton plant which he obtained direct from China and 

 grew in the Calcutta Gardens. There is thus no doubt that a form of 

 G. Nanking, obtained from Kabul, and another from China, were grown 

 in Calcutta, from which specimens were collected and issued with the letters 

 H.B.C. indicative of their origin. It is, therefore, hardly safe to assume 

 that a specimen with these letters, as the sole record of its history, and 

 which had been determined by Kurz perhaps sixty years after Roxburgh's 

 death, could be accepted as a type of G. obtusifolium, Boxb. (cf. with 

 G. Nanking, var. rubicunda, p. 127, and G. obtusifolium, p. 141). 



In De Candolle's Herbarium, Geneva, there is a specimen of the typical 

 plant collected by Rein in Japan, n. 23. In the Economic Herbarium, 

 Department of Agriculture, United States, are specimens of plants being 

 experimentally cultivated at Washington : The murasaJci cotton, n. 607 ; 



