SECTION III: THE SACRED COTTON 203 



be accepted as the type of this form. It was named in Linnaeus' hand- Linnean 

 writing ' religiosum,' but corrected by Sir James Smith into ' barba- 8 P ecimen - 

 dense,' an idea of his own for which there is no authority. In this view 

 of the case there can be no manner of doubt that the specimen of 

 religiosum that must be accepted as the type of the species, is more 

 closely related to G. hirsutum than to G. brasiliense (which is Plukenet's 

 plant with 5-lobed leaves and kidneyed seeds). Lamarck had a 

 fairly correct conception of what Linnseus meant, hence his allusion 

 to G. religiosum under his G. tricuspidatum and the exclusion of the 

 synonymy. Cavanilles followed Lamarck, but urged that the pro- Cava- 

 trusion of the style and stigma, before the complete expansion of the nil }es' de- 

 white flower, were distinctive features. His plate is a very unsatis- 

 factory one, and his statement that it came from the Cape of Good 

 Hope is interesting, more especially if the view be accepted of 

 regarding this plant as a cultivated state of G. prostratum, Sch. et 

 Than. 



Poiret (I.e.), following Lamarck, gave a good account of it, and 

 Turpin (I.e.) furnished a fair drawing. Unfortunately, however, 

 Poiret seems to have been compiling, and accordingly fell into 

 several errors, such as the description of the leaves as glabrous, 

 though the young shoots were hairy. The wool, he says, is fine and ^ cu itj}. 

 very white, but firmly adherent to the seed. He then observes that vated 

 it approaches closely to G. latifoUum, Murray (and in that opinion 

 he is undoubtedly correct), but concludes that the plant, though 

 cultivated in the East Indies, was originally a native of the Antilles. 

 There would seem no doubt whatever that the present species (if the 

 suggestion regarding G. prostratum cannot be upheld) is purely and 

 simply a cultivated state, but where or how it originated no one 

 hitherto seems to have made any effort to ascertain. 



Both Swartz and Willdenow, followed by Parlatore, completely Eed or 

 confused it with G. brasiliense. Buchanan-Hamilton, who reduced cottons, 

 all the cottons of the world to two species the white-seeded and the 

 black-seedednevertheless fell into the error of adding a third (G. 

 croceum) to denote those with red-coloured wool, the most striking 

 manifestation of which he, no doubt, regarded as the present plant. 

 He thus destroyed his classification or exposed its utter futility. 

 Eoxburgh was the first author who seems to have carefully studied 

 this form, and he remarked that it 'can scarcely be more than a 

 variety of hirsutum.' He describes the seeds as ' free, clothed with 

 firmly adhering, short, tawny down, and long wool of the same 



