188 



WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



Firmly 

 attached 



floss. 



Seed sent 

 to Georgia. 



Correc- 

 tions 

 made by 

 Linnaeus. 



virescente.' This, it is safe to assume, had been sketched from a 

 specimen furnished by Philip Miller, and possibly as a consequence 

 of the interest taken in the plant by the great horticulturist. There 

 can thus be no doubt that considerable attention was paid to this plant, 

 for in the Duchess of Beaufort's herbarium (also a portion of the 

 great Sloane Herbarium of the British Museum), there are several 

 specimens of it, one (Vol. 133, folio 14) to which reference has already 

 been made. The Duchess was born somewhere about 1630, and died 

 in 1714, so that her collection of plants must have been mainly made 

 within the latter half of the seventeenth century. 



Miller makes special mention of the wool of this species adhering 

 firmly to the seeds, hence necessitating special gins. It was this diffi- 

 culty that was finally overcome by Whitney in 1793, by the invention 

 of the saw-gin. But to the frequent discussion of the firmly attached 

 floss is due very possibly the error committed and perpetuated by 

 several subsequent authors of describing the seeds as ' adhering 

 together.' 



In 1734 we read that cotton was raised in Georgia from seed 

 supplied to the trustees by Philip Miller, of Chelsea, and in the 

 eighth edition of his Dictionary (published 1768), Miller, commenting 

 on this plant, urges that ' it is well worthy the attention of the in- 

 habitants of the British Colonies in America to cultivate and improve 

 this sort.' That hint was apparently acted up to, for by 1786 the 

 green-seeded cotton had become the sort chiefly grown in America. 

 But the present explanatory note of the synonymy of this species 

 would not be complete without one or two further particulars. 

 Linnaeus' own copy of the second edition of the ' Species Plantarum ' 

 is preserved in the library of the Linnean Society of London. In that 

 volume certain MS. corrections and additions were made by Linnaeus 

 himself, doubtless in anticipation of a future issue of that work 

 never published by him. For example, the passage from Tournefort 

 (' Inst.' 101, quoted above), is struck out, and a reference made to 

 Plukenet (' Aim.' 172, t. 299, f. 1). It would thus seem likely that 

 Linnaeus contemplated the correction of G. hirsutum, from being the 

 plant Miller intended by his description, supported by his specimens, 

 into that in the Linnean Herbarium, which is G. obtusifolium, Roxb., 

 var. Wightiana (see reproduction Linn, specimens, Plate No. 21, and 

 compare with Plate No. 29 A, which shows the true G. hirsutum). 

 Accordingly, Linnaeus observed, in his further remarks, that it differed 

 from G. herbaceum in the obtuse lobes of the leaves, the position of 



