SECTION III: G. PUNCTATUM 173 



Leone Africanus), who resided in North Africa and Egypt, and 

 explored a large part of the west coast (from 1492 to 1526, see Pory's Nigeria, 

 transl. 1600), repeatedly speaks of the finest cotton coming to the 

 coast towns from the more interior country of the Negros. This 

 same statement, it will presently be shown, was made by Poiret in 

 1818. It seems safe to assume, therefore, that the fine cotton of 

 these early writers may have been derived from the cultivated states 

 of the present species, seeing that the fine cotton of the interior tracts 

 to-day is mostly obtained from it. 



Crossing Africa to the eastern side, the opinions of other travellers 

 are quoted by Pory (I.e. pt. i. p. 22), such as Don Francisco Aluarez, 

 who observed ' great plenty of cotton whereof they make cloth of divers 

 colours.' That remark was made of Abyssinia in 1520, and possibly 

 had reference to G. herbaceum or G. arboreum, not G. punctatum, for 

 the simple reason that no authentic specimen of that species has as 

 yet been collected in Abyssinia. The plant named G. punctatum 

 by Eichard (' Tent. Fl. Abyss.' i., 1847, p. 63) is, I believe, G. 

 herbaceum. 



The West African plant here described was first definitely Sene- 

 recognised botanically by Guillemin and Perrottet, who collected it g ambia - 

 in Senegambia, and gave it the MS. name which was later on 

 accepted and published by Schumacher, who procured the plant 

 from Guinea. Brunner (I.e.) divides the cottons of Senegambia 

 into three groups : (a) those cultivated, (b) those partially cultivated, 

 and (c) those met with quite wild. The wild forms were seen on the wild 

 hills of Sal where the leaves are more deeply lobed and more com- 

 pletely covered over with dots than is the case with the cultivated 

 states. Winterbottom (' Account of the Natives of Sierra Leone,' 

 1803, vol. i., p. 95) speaks of a cotton found near the coast 

 growing ' as common, and almost as much neglected, as the 

 thistle in England ; it is generally of too short a staple, as it is 

 termed in trade, to be worth exporting.' It is highly probable, 

 moreover, that this is the plant which Mockler-Ferryman speaks 

 of as wild in many parts of West Africa (' West Africa,' 2nd ed., 

 1900, pp. 439-441). In spite of its inferior staple it is perhaps one 

 of the most interesting of all cottons, and has been recorded as met 

 with in a truly wild condition in several localities, and not a few of 

 the specimens, seen in Herbaria (from the nature of their flosses), 

 would seem to justify that opinion. Others are undoubtedly 

 survivals of cultivation, and may be observed in the series of 



