SECTION IV . G. VITIFOLIUM 261 



Isle of Prance (Mauritius) and in several parts of South America. 

 He then adds that it had been sent to him by M. Sonnerat. 



Of G. barbadense Lamarck furnishes next to no information in 

 fact, only republishes the Linnean diagnostic characters, and then 

 adds that it grows naturally in Barbados. But commenting on his 

 G. gldbrum (doubtless one of the forms of Bourbon cotton), he remarks 

 that he was uncertain whether he should not bring it under G. bar- 

 badense. It is thus quite clear that he confused G. barbadense, and 

 that the plant which he described as G. vitifolium was founded to 

 include at least some of the cultivated states now treated as forms of 

 G. barbadense. 



Cavanilles accepted the species G. vitifolium as denned by Lamarck, Cava- 

 but modified the description. The upper leaves, he says, are 3-lobed, 



the lower 5-lobed and sometimes sub-tomentose, the corolla almost 

 shorter than the bracteoles, convolute, the limbs maculate with 

 purple claws, calyx 5-dentate, and the seeds ovate black (his plate 

 shows them quite free from each other and devoid of any trace of 

 fuzz). A note added by D. Thouin is to the effect that there are six 

 glands on the flower, three outside and three inside the bracteoles. 

 Cavanilles seems, in fact, to have established the species G. peru- 

 vianum with the express purpose of meeting the position of fuzzy- 

 seeded forms of this assemblage, but it is remarkable that he should 

 have said G. barbadense was unknown to him. The explanation, 

 doubtless, is that G. vitifolium embraced all the cottons in question. 



Willdenow (in ' Linn., Sp. PI.' 4th ed. in., p. 804) accepted the 

 species as defined by Lamarck and as amended by Cavanilles. 



Koxburgh's G. vitifolium (' Fl. Ind.' in., 186) is G. peruvianum, 

 Cav., but his MS. plate named G. vitifolium (n. 1,490) is G. brasi- 

 liense. Wight (' 111. Ind. Bot.' i., t. 28 B) confused this plant with 

 Sea Island cotton, as indeed did most subsequent writers. (Cf. 

 Wight, ' American Cotton at Government Cotton Farm of Coimba- 

 tore,' 1843). 



CULTIVATION 



Races. If G. vitifolium has any claim to having been seen in a Separate 

 truly wild condition, and I am disposed to think it has, then it is 

 highly likely that G. barbadense is but one of its many cultivated tial. 

 states ; the finer grades would be the true Sea Island, the less impor- 

 tant the better grades of Egyptian long staple, with the modern 

 Maragan, Surinam, St. Domingo, Cayenne, &c., as still other grades. 

 It is accordingly, from a commercial point of view, important that 



