120 WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



Eumphius, while Cavanilles simply republished Lamarck's descrip- 

 tion but did not himself recognise the plant, since he gave two 

 Anoma- additional names and descriptions that can only be accepted as 

 p us . synonyms for it not separate species. In fact his G. micranthum 

 cotton. (a Persian plant), while in foliage nearly typical of G. Nanking, is 

 figured and described as having such an anomalous flower that it 

 could only have been conceived (as already indicated) from imperfect 

 material. No subsequent writer has mentioned having seen the 

 flowers of a Gossypium that could for a moment be accepted as 

 suggestive even of G. micranthum, Cav. The bracteoles are also 

 peculiar: they are very large and much united. It is, moreover, 

 curious that Cavanilles should have given his G. hirsutum the habitat 

 of America, since it is a matter of history that, in 1758, the French 

 colonists of Louisiana had imported and cultivated the (even by then) 

 much famed (both red and white) Siam cotton (cf. p. 19). From that 

 stock doubtless came the plant described as American, by the great 

 Spanish botanist. 



It is significant how persistently writers of the eighteenth century 

 (especially French) allude to Siam cotton. Pere Labat (' Nouv. Voy. 

 aux Isles de I'Ame'r.' 1724, i., pt. 2, p. 127) speaks of it as introduced 

 into Guadeloupe and valued because of its coffee-coloured, soft, silky 

 Stocking wool, of which they made stockings that rivalled those of silk. Eohr 

 (' Observ. sur la Cult, du Cot.' 1807, pp. 55-7) describes under the 

 name 'Siam Cotton' (both red and white) a cultivated cotton the 

 original seeds of which he admits having obtained from Guadeloupe. 

 It was, he adds, specially grown in Sainte-Croix by M. le Comte 

 Schimmelmann in 1789. There are, however, two points worthy 

 of special comment: the cotton spoken of by Eohr as valued for 

 stockings was the ' Cura9ao ' (G. punctatum, var. Jamaica), not the 

 present species ; and although Eobr possessed Cambay cotton (G. 

 obtusifolium, var. Wightiana) 'Nun's cotton' as he called it he 

 did not regard the present plant as in any way related to the ' Nun's 

 cotton.' Crawfurd (' Jour, to Siam,' 1830, n., p. 180) gives particulars 

 of the traffic in cotton (fai) from Siam. 



Willdenow accepted Lamarck's position as also that of Cavanilles, 

 so that it cannot be upheld that he had a clear notion of the plant 

 for which he retained the name G. indicum. Lastly, that name is 

 open to ambiguity, since the plant is more Chinese than Indian, and, 

 although met with in India, is there neither the most important nor 

 the most characteristic species. For these and other such reasons it 



