300 



WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



Early spe- 

 cimens. 



Early 

 attention. 



Grown in 

 Europe. 



Explana- 

 tion of 

 name. 



G. arboreum to do duty as Brazilian Tree Cotton, and Lamarck 

 (unless he included it under his G. mtifolium) does not describe 

 kidney cotton at all. Moreover, the examples seen in herbaria are 

 curiously enough more numerous and historically more interesting 

 from Africa than from any other country. While the specimen 

 figured by Zanoni would appear to have been derived from Brazil, 

 Plukenet's specimen (Sloane herb, of British Museum, vol. 96, fol. 60) 

 seems to have come from the Island of Providence (see Plate No. 49, 

 f. B, also the reproduction of Plukenet's t. 188, f. 2, which was pre- 

 pared from that specimen, f. C). 



It is somewhat significant that this species is better represented 

 and, judged of from the records of its collection, has been consider- 

 ably more widely distributed than any other cultivated cotton. After 

 G. herbaceum (the Levant cotton) this was the species that first 

 attracted the attention of Europe. It would thus seem possible that 

 the large capsule and compact mass of seeds, with their copious 

 coating of long silky floss, conveyed the impression that this would 

 prove a very profitable plant : hence its rapid and extensive distribu- 

 tion and the recent vernacular names given to it that denote ' wealth.' 

 Both Piso (1648) and Zanoni (1675) tell us that they grew it in 

 Europe. Morison (I.e.) speaks of it as grown in Italy, and Jacob 

 Breyne (' Prod. Ear. PI.' 24, 1739) saw it at Beaumont. The seed 

 had been procured from Brazil through Marcgraf and others by the 

 middle of the seventeenth century. 



There is thus no doubt that the first kidney cotton seen (botanic- 

 ally) in Europe, came from Brazil, and Jacob Zanoni in 1742 called 

 it Xylon brasilianum. Sloane tells us that much of this cotton was 

 brought from Brazil by Lancaster ; so also Purchas quotes many 

 travellers who found cotton in Brazil, the most interesting perhaps 

 being Lerius, because he describes the plant. There was thus ample 

 time for this species to become fully acclimatised in both India and 

 Africa long before we first make acquaintance with it from these 

 countries, and moreover it had even then been displaced from popular 

 favour by the Upland and Sea Island cottons of the United States. 



I have chosen the name G. brasiliense, Mac/., for this species 

 because Macfadyen admits having derived his information from 

 Sloane, who in 1697 combined under the name G. brasilianum two or 

 more species which Macfadyen separated and distinguished with 

 considerable accuracy. Moreover, Sloane's specimen collected in 

 Jamaica and preserved in the British Museum (Sloane herb., vol. 6, 



