SECTION II. SIAM COTTON 119 



clearly the necessity for separating the Chinese from the more 

 common Indian, African, and Occidental plants. 



In Plukenet's herbarium (which constitutes a portion of the Plukenet'a 

 Sloane collections of the British Museum) there are preserved two ^Ina. 

 or three examples of a plant (vol. 96, f. 62) which I accept with some 

 hesitation as being an extreme manifestation of the present species 

 (see Plate No. 15 A), approximating fairly closely to the Indian race 

 called Bani (see 15 C). The former was figured and described 

 (' Aim. Bot. Phyt.' 1696, t. 299, f . 1) (reproduced by me, see 15 B), 

 but the sample (A) obviously used in preparing the illustration 

 (published by Plukenet) does not possess the lowermost leaf (2) nor 

 the flower (1) there given. Plukenet's description was as follows : 

 ' Gossypium frutescens pentaphyllos, ex insula Barbouthensi, seg- 

 mentis foliorum ad latera rotundioribus, ex quo Cotonum, s. Bombax 

 serici instar candidissima.' He then adds that no other cotton is 

 preferred to this in whiteness and softness. About the time 

 Plukenet wrote, China cotton had begun to be famous for its silky 

 texture and pure white colour. But before leaving this subject I 

 think it as well to add that one leaf, mounted separately (in Pluk. 

 herb.) shows the central lobe almost cut up into three portions, 

 a peculiarity never witnessed by me in any other specimen, unless 

 the lateral segmentation in some forms of G. arboreum (see Dacca 

 Cotton, Plate No. 12) be regarded as indicative of that condition. 



Linnaeus made no citation of the above description and plate of Linnean 

 Plukenet, in the first and second editions of his ' Species Plantarum,' tion. 

 but in the ' Systema Naturae ' (1767, n., p. 462) he made the mistake, 

 manifest hi his herbarium, of confusing G. hirsutum, Miller, with the 

 Indian G. obtusifolium, Eoxb. and the Chinese G. Nanking, Meyen ; 

 accordingly he cited Plukenet's plant above under G. hirsutum. 

 Hence it follows that G. hirsutum, Linn., Syst. Nat. has to be spoken 

 of as non Sp. PL 



Volkamer, in 1714 (a century later than Trigault), gave a plate of 

 G. Nanking and says the plant had been introduced into China 500 

 years previously and was supposed to have come from Egypt. 

 Kumphius furnished an admirable description and better drawing of 

 it, but his admission that the two plants figured by him, as also by 

 Eheede, constitute but one species, precludes priority of authorship 

 being assigned to him. 



Lamarck took a different view and admittedly gave the name Lamarck's 



YIGW 



G. indicum in order to provide a place for the plant, as figured by 



