GOSSYPIUM 



BARBADENSE THE COTTON PLANT 



Sea Island 



there are several distinctive races, derived very possibly from G. taitense, 

 Parl., and which constitute the Bourbon and Porto Rico Cottons of 

 commerce. 



The seeds are not only what is called naked, but the leaves are almost glabrous. 

 They are perennial plants with strongly angled purplish shoots and leaves ovate 

 entire or with three lobes on the apex, the laterals arching outwards and the 

 petioles almost thorny through the growth of glandular warts. They are all 

 essentially insular plants, hence the greater success attained with them in South 

 as compared with North India. They seem to be readily hybridised, and in 

 consequence it is not uncommon for completely fuzzy seeds to appear among 

 plants raised from the normal condition, viz. the seeds naked, except for a tuft 

 of rust-coloured fuzz around the beak. 



D.E.P., 

 iv., 22-3. 

 Vine- 

 leaved 

 Cotton. 



Long Staple, 

 Egyptian. 



Weevil 

 Resistent. 



D.E.P., 

 iv., 18-20. 

 Sea Island 

 Cotton. 



G. vitifolium, LamJc., Encycl. Meth. Bot., ii., 135 (excl. syn. Pluk. 

 Aim., t. 188, f. 2, added doubtfully by Lamk.) ; Watt, I.e. 255-65, tt. 1, 

 45 ; Xylon arboreum, Merian, Surin. Insect., 1679, t. 10 ; Labat, Nouv. 

 Voy. aux Isles de VAmer., 1724, i., pt. 2, 125-31 ; G. latifolium, Rumphius, 

 Herb. Amb., 1750, iv., 37, t. xiii. (excl. syn.) ; G. barbadense, Parl., Sp. 

 dei Cot., t. iii. (in part) ; G. religiosum, Aliotta, Riv. Crit. Gen. Goss., 44 

 (in part). 



The Vine-leaved Cotton was probably originally a native of Central and 

 South America, to the Amazon basin and the Lesser Antilles, but early found 

 under cultivation throughout the cotton area of the world. It is the Egyptian 

 long staple, Antilles, Piura, Surinam and Cayenne, St. Domingo, Guade- 

 loupe, Barbados and other cottons. In the early literature of this genus the 

 greatest possible obscurity prevails regarding G. fei'6rteue. It might, in 

 fact, without fear of contradiction, be affirmed that there was little or no dis- 

 tinction between that species and the present plant. As time advanced 

 the form known as Sea Island Cotton appeared, and to it became restricted, 

 by most authors, the name G. ft'erfei*e, leaving G. vMfoiium to be ac- 

 cepted as denoting the slightly lower-grade cottons of South America and Egypt 

 that are classed as " Long Staples." It is, in other words, highly likely that 

 this plant may have been one of the ancestral stocks of G. barbntiense, var. 

 iHtifititmi a plant which is perhaps the most recent addition to the prized 

 races of cotton met with in the world. No one seems to know what was meant 

 originally by G. 6-ftrtee. It nowhere exists in a wild state, and is ap- 

 parently never cultivated except in the form nowadays called Sea Island, but 

 which could hardly be accepted as G. bnrbnaenne, Linn. The present plant, on 

 the other hand, exists in numerous forms. It is the vine-leaved cotton of 

 most of the early authors, who repeatedly speak of it as met with wild or 

 completely acclimatised. The leaves are sub-cordate with mostly only three 

 ascending lobes, the texture often pilose-tomentose below. The bracteoles are 

 very large, ovate rotund, deeply auricled, slightly united below and often pos- 

 sessed of the bractlets - described by Cook as weevil-resisting adaptations 

 (U.S. Dept. Agri. Bureau PL Indust., 1906, No. 88.) Seeds black, naked and 

 quite free from each other. 



G. foarbadense, Linn., Horl. UpsaL, 1748, i., 204; Sp. PL (1st 

 ed.), 1753, ii., 693 ; Pluk., Aim. Bot., 1696, ii., 172, and Phyt., t. 188, 

 f. 1. (excl. all syn.) ; Wight, Illust. Ind. Bot., 1840, i., 57-64, t. 28s ; Watt, 

 I.e. 265-95, tt. 46-8 ; Sea Island Cotton. 



This embraces all the higher-grade long-staple cottons. A shrubby perennial 

 known only in a state of cultivation, and raised usually as an annual. It is 

 glabrous or nearly so, except on the leaf-stalks and veins and the under-surfaces 

 of young leaves. 



As already suggested, there seems every probability that the early authors 

 who accepted the name a. iHtrimdense did not realise that it meant one and 

 the same plant as that designated G. vitlfoHum. By cultivation and crossing, 

 however, a highly specialised race, known as " Sea Island," was produced, to 

 which by recent authors the Linnean name G. b-hrfeue became in time 

 restricted, though Todaro, and following him some other botanists, preferred to 

 give the new stock the name of G.mufitiiHtun, thus leaving G. imrbaiien 



588 



