SECTION II: GUJARAT TREE COTTON 135 



Professor Middleton (l.c.) published an admirable account of this plant, Descrip- 

 from which the following description may be abstracted: A tall, much- tion. 

 branched shrub, often climbing in hedges 6-8 feet, with straight ascending 

 branches. Young parts covered with stellate hairs which fall off, leaving the 

 mature structures glabrous or with a few long simple shaggy hairs, thus 

 causing the gland-dots to become very conspicuous. Stems and branches 

 cinereous or with a brown tinge on the exposed parts. Leaves thick, leathery, 

 dark green, shining, margins straight, cordate, mostly five-lobed and half 

 segmented, lobes ovate acute or acuminate, somewhat constricted at the 

 base ; petioles nearly as long as the blade and thickened at the base ; stipules 

 small, those on the peduncles unequal. Inflorescence, secondary or tertiary 

 buds that bear at most three flowers ; bracteoles toothed or entire, deeply 

 cordate, nearly half the length of corolla. Flowers large, pale yellow with 

 purple centre, turning pink with age ; calyx truncate or crenulate, three large 

 glands at the base and within the bracteoles. Fruit trigonous, ovate acu- 

 minate, opening freely when ripe. Seeds 5-7 in each cell, with greenish-grey 

 fuzz and firmly adhering white wool; staple short and harsh. Seeds less 

 valuable for feeding purposes because of the greater percentage of fuzz than 

 on other cottons. 



Habitat. India (Gujarat, especially in Baroda and Khaira), Gujarat. 

 Africa, Arabia, and Madagascar. 



Citation of Specimens. East Africa : collected by Sir John Kirk in 

 Zambesia, 1858 (the Tonje kaja cotton). Central Africa: Schweinfurth 

 (January, 1869), n. 941, from White Nile (is possibly var. Nadam rather than 

 Boji), n. 779, from Khartoum ; Arabia, collected by W. Lunt during Mr. 

 J. Th. Bent's Hadramaiit Expedition, 1893, n. 131 (is possibly nearer to var. 

 Nadam than Roji). Madagascar : collected by Albro Grevi, n. 128 ; 

 Abyssinia : collected by Schimper, n. 691, 1839 (specimens in Geneva and 

 Cambridge Herbaria). In Herb. R.E.P. Calcutta numerous specimens from 

 Baroda, Gujarat. 



Nomenclature. One of the earliest and most interesting allusions Gujarat 

 to, what would appear to be, this cultivated cotton, is that given by 

 Marco Polo. Speaking of Gujarat in the 13th century, he observes 

 that there is a great deal of cotton, the plants growing to trees fully 

 six paces high (? 30 feet) and attaining an age of twenty years. But 

 he adds, when the trees are so old as that, the cotton is not good to 

 spin, but only to quilt or stuff beds. Up to the age of twelve years 

 the trees give good spinning cotton. This is almost precisely the 

 statement furnished by Serapion four hundred years previously 

 regarding (?) Arabia. (Cf. with G. arboreitm, p. 85.) 



Sir H. Yule, in his edition of Marco Polo, (vol. n., 328-9), con- 

 tributes a most valuable commentary on the above passage. Marsden, 

 he says, was induced to suggest that the tree cotton of Marco Polo 

 may have been Bombax. Commenting further on, Sir Henry adds that 



