SECTION II : VAR. WIGHTIANA 145 



remarkable plant, possibly an extreme form of G. Nanking var. Bani, rather 

 than the present. It is probable that it was being grown by the missionaries, 

 since the Nicobaris at that time are not likely to have cultivated any cotton 

 for their own use. 



In the Kew Herbarium there are many samples that had better perhaps 

 be mentioned under the paragraphs devoted below to the races of this plant. 

 One may, however, be here specially mentioned, namely, a plant collected 

 by Allan Cunningham in Australia, presumably from a field of experimental 

 cotton raised from Gujarat seed. 



In the Edinburgh Herbarium there are several interesting sheets : a speci- 

 men collected by J. Campbell in Madras in 1835, another by Dr. D. Eitchie at 

 Belgaum in 1853, and a third by Schlagintweit at Kach in 1857, n. 11,244. 



Nomenclature. One of the most remarkable features of this plant A recent 

 is the circumstance that, while it is the most valuable of all Indian cotton - 

 cottons to-day (and it might also be said of African cottons as well), 

 it is the one least understood and last of all to be described by 

 botanists. In fact no Herbarium in Europe could be said to even 

 now possess a sufficiently extensive series to be of practical value. 

 There is, moreover, no certain evidence that Koxburgh ('Fl. Ind.' 

 1832), who described the wild condition, was aware of the existence of 

 the cultivated plant. There are undoubted specimens of it, however, 

 in the Linnean Herbarium, but these (as already mentioned) have 

 been named (and by Linnaeus himself) as G. hirsutum. 



Many botanists have cited Plukenet's plate ( 'Phyt.' n. t. 299, f. 1) Imaginary 

 as being the present plant, but I am fairly satisfied that is a mistake. plc ure ' 

 His actual specimen is in the British Museum, and I prefer to 

 regard it as G. Nanking, though a remarkable and very exceptional 

 form of even that species. The flower shown in the picture appears 

 to have been drawn purely from imagination, and its presence caused 

 the definition of the species to be modified and thus added seriously 

 to the confusion that already prevailed. 



Linnaeus possessed, however, a good average sample of this cotton, oldest 

 though, as just observed, he incorrectly named it G. hirsutum and s P eci ' 

 recorded the locality ' Suratt ' alongside the twig, but omitted to Gujarat 

 mention that fact in his ' Species Plantarum ' or to give the name of cotton> 

 his contributor. (See Plate No. 21, f. A.) 



Lamarck, Cavanilles, Willdenow, Parlatore, and other authors all 

 believed this Indian cotton to be either G. indicum, G. hirsutum, or 

 G. herbaceum. But not one of them had any sort of practical know- 

 ledge of the Indian cultivated plant. It was collected by Hove in Hove's 

 Gujarat in 1787, though, strangely enough, his remarks regarding it sp^cimena 

 almost involve belief that it was then a new crop, or at least was opinion. 



L 



