SECTION III: SOUTH AMERICAN COTTON 215 



mit afifi cottons, the first mentioned being the oldest of these special 

 Egyptian races. Miers in MS. note in British Museum records 

 gathering this plant at Lima in Peru, and Spruce (I.e.) furnished a 

 most instructive account of its cultivation in N. Peru. Spruce 

 incorrectly supposed the name G. peruvianum to have been given 

 by Linnaeus to the kidney cotton of Brazil, then he adds ' I must 

 confess, however, that I have perhaps nowhere seen a cotton plant 

 truly wild. In ravines running down to the sea at Chanduy and 

 St. Elena, there are a few stunted cotton bushes, which are leafless 

 a great part of the year or sometimes for years together; but, 

 although they look wild enough, they may have been derived from 

 seeds of the plants which the Indians grow near their houses in the 

 adjacent villages, and render productive by constant watering. The 

 cottons grown by the Indians of the Amazon valley are varieties of 

 G. barbadense, and so are those of Andine valleys, where there is no 

 tradition of the plant having been introduced ; and yet a truly wild 

 specimen is nowhere to be met with.' It was most fortunate, how- 

 ever, that Spruce preserved specimens of the Chanduy plant n. 6541 

 seen by him in a semi-wild condition, since that removes any possible 

 doubt as to the determination of the species. It was G. peruvianum, 

 Cav., as here understood. 



Citation of Specimens. The following are some of the more striking Speei- 

 examples of this plant examined by me : In the Herbarium Eoyal Botanic mens : 

 Gardens, Kew : EUROPE : cultivated in Greece, Spain &c., ex herb. J. Gay 

 (named G. hirsutum, also G. vitifolium and Supp. n. 44 named G. barba- 

 dense) ; POLYNESIA : Fiji (Seemann's n. 31 an exceptional example with the 

 leaves more deeply segmented and the fruit more elongated than is usual, 

 also n. 32 a peculiar form, named incorrectly ' New Orleans Cotton,' with 

 the leaves thin in texture, pilose, and in shape rather those of G. vitifolium 

 than of G. peruvianum) ; AFRICA : (Western), Abbeokuta, Dr. Irving, 1855, African, 

 n. 1. ' Common (own) cotton ' ; Congo, Consul Burton, 1863, ukoko ; Lagos 

 (common cult, cotton, 1859) ; Niger Exped., Barter, n. 3349; Sierra Leone, 

 (ex herb. Brown, 1859) ; Gold Coast, W. H. Johnston, ' Culti. and probably 

 introduced many years ' ; Togo, W. Africa, Warnecke, n. 18 ; Liberia, Sir 

 H. H, Johnston (20 miles from Karkatown) ; Ashanti Exped., 1895, Dr. 

 H. A. Cummins, n. 13F ; Sir J. Kirk, from Highlands of Batoka, collected 

 during Livingstone's Zambesi Exped. (material too incomplete, but may be 

 rather G. microcarpum, Tod.) is described as bazuzulu cotton ; sample 

 from Egypt named G. vitifolium, Willd., Bove, n. 317 ; Kili Makei, Kaess- 

 ner, B. E. Africa, n. 611 ; Natal, Dr. W. B. Grant ; Somali Coast, W. W. 

 Perry ; Egyptian cotton grown at Khartoum, a specimen recently collected 

 by Broun, n. 694 an admirable staple probably a hybrid ; large series of 

 samples specially furnished for this publication by Mr. W. Lawrence Balls, 

 Cairo, of ' Egyptian Cottons,' also of abassi, mit afifi, &c., all prove races of 



