306 



WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



Now 

 ejected 

 from cul- 

 tivation. 



Birth of 



Sea 



Island. 



Hybrids. 



Kidneye 

 seeds : 

 early 

 figured. 



Feral 

 state. 



special races of G. barbadense, that culminated in tn_ Sea Island 

 stock, the planters of the West Indies put their faith chiefly on forms 

 of this cotton, now all but completely ejected everywhere from culti- 

 vation. Eohr (as already stated) tells us that the prized forms of 

 Guiana cotton, such as the Surinam and Cayenne, were mainly, if 

 not entirely, cottons that differed collectively from the Brazilian 

 cotton in having two more seeds in the kidney mass. 



It is, however, certain that shortly after the period here mentioned 

 the Surinam and Cayenne cottons of commerce became forms of G. 

 mtifolium, if they might not more correctly be viewed as having 

 become hybrids of that species with G. brasiliense, approximating 

 closely to the Sea Island stock of the United States. It is on this 

 account that much uncertainty prevails as to whether Merian's 

 picture, published originally in 1679, Eumphius' picture, published 

 in 1750, and the specimen in the Linnean herbarium from Surinam 

 (see Plate No. 49 A), represent forms of G. mtifolium, or are examples 

 of G. brasiliense. 



Eohr shows us emphatically that both the plants mentioned had 

 been grown side by side, and perhaps this had been so for two cen- 

 turies prior to even Bohr's time. 



It would, therefore, be difficult to believe that under these circum- 

 stances numerous cultivated (if not even wild) hybrids between 

 them, had not existed even from before the discovery of America. It 

 is easy, accordingly, to account for the immense importance attached 

 to the present species, by the early botanists, Zanoni, Plukenet, 

 Sloane, and others. Lobel figured a kidney mass of seeds in 

 1576, and thus about the commencement of the period of demand 

 for Brazilian cotton and seed ; a century later the plant was even 

 cultivated in Europe (by Zanoni), and shortly thereafter had been 

 carried to every cotton-growing country in the world. But there 

 remains one highly significant circumstance : namely, that when 

 rejected from cultivation and left in a state of nature under widely 

 diverse environment in India, Africa, the West Indies, and America, 

 &c. the survival almost invariably assumes the specific characteristics 

 of the G. brasiliense of botanists. Except perhaps in the Antilles and 

 in some parts of South America the G. mtifolium type does not seem 

 to be preserved in feral states. (Cf. para, on Pollen Grains, 

 pp. 346-7, 348). 



In spite, therefore, of the reports made all over the world of 

 individual plants raised in gardens, giving an abnormally high yield, 



