256 WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



Cotton in India, 1851, p. 151 ; a. BARBADENSE, Parl ? (in part), 

 Sp. dei Cot. t. in. ; Piura Cotton, Spruce, Cult. Cotton in N. Peru, 

 1864, p. 61 ; G. BARBADENSE (in part), Oliver, Fl. Trop. Africa, 

 1868, i., 210; G. vitifolium, Todaro, Relaz. dei Cot. 251-7 (in 

 part), t. xii. ; Quebradinho Cotton in Brazil, according to Branner, 

 Empire Brazil, 1885, in U.S. Dept. Agri. p. 28 ; G. RELIGIOSUM, 

 Schumann, Mart., Fl. Bras. (1891), xn., pt. in., p. 583 (in part) ; 

 G. RELIGIOSUM, Aliotta, Biv. Grit. Gen. Goss., p. 44 (in part) ; 

 0. F. Cook, Weevil-Resisting Adapt, of Cotton PL in U.S. Dept. 

 Agri. Bureau, PL Ind. n. 88, 1906. 



The Vine-leaved cotton ; some of the Egyptian long staples ; 

 Antilles ; Piura or Amazon ; Surinam, Cayenne ; St. Domingo, 

 Guadeloupe, Barbados, &c. 



This would appear to be the stock from which much of the cotton 

 often described as Sea Island, as also the best qualities of the long- 

 staple Egyptian cotton, and all the higher grade South American 

 cottons may have been and are still mainly derived. It is, for 

 example, the Piura cotton, described by Spruce as the chief indigenous 

 cotton plant of N. Peru. In fact, it seems highly likely that this is 

 the earliest known stock of G. barbadense, Linn., though from its being 

 occasionally recorded as found wild or in a state of complete acclima- 

 tisation, it seems preferable to retain it as a separate form rather 

 than to merge it into the protean G. barbadense, of which botanically 

 it is possibly only a variety. Moreover, in cultivation it rarely exists 

 pure, and through hybridisation merges into G. peruvianum : in fact 

 the two plants are often separable with difficulty. 



Descrip- Leaves sub-cordate, frequently irregular, but with three (or five) 



ascending lobes, the central one often much longer than the laterals, 

 more or less pilose-tomentose below ; bracteoles large, slightly united 

 below, and teeth awl-shaped ; seeds black, naked, and quite free from 

 each other. This is, in other words, a broader-leaved form G. barba- 

 dense, more like a softly hairy G. peruvianum, though the leaves are 

 mostly only 3-lobed and the lobes broad, occasionally 5-lobed, the 

 bottom pair being more angled than lobed. The flowers are very 

 large, perhaps often three times the length of the bracteoles. The 

 Surinam plant, mentioned above, has much smaller, almost pilose 

 leaves, the whole plant being very hairy, so that I am by no means 

 sure that it should not be treated as a new species. Berthoud- 

 Coulon's specimen (mentioned below), closely matches the frag- 

 mentary specimen in the Linnean Herbarium, and Hassler's Paraguay 



