May 1, 1865.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



NORTHERN PERU. 437 



Obs. — Notwithstanding the extraordinary length and fineness of the 

 staple of this cotton, the plant is plainly a degenerated form of the New 

 Orleans, with the pods still smaller, fewer, and more capricious in their 

 ripening. Mr. Garland had a small plot of ground devoted to it, and 

 although the plants seemed to thrive perfectly, the yield was so small 

 that at four times the juice it would not have paid so well as the 

 Egyptian cotton. 



9. Algodon Rinon (Kidney Cotton). 



Descr. — A spreading tree or shrub. Petioles nearly smooth. Leaves 

 6x9 inches, full green, thin, flat, or very slightly rugose, smooth above, 

 with a few scattered hairs on veins beneath, cloven only half-way ; 

 segments, broadly ovate, with a short very acute acumen. Involucral 

 leaves, very large, 3*3 X 22 inches, pale yellow-green, with a reddish or 

 colourless basal gland, laciniated only in upper half, the terminal lacinia 

 equalling or surpassing the sulphur-coloured corolla. Pod, 2x1-4 

 inches, broadly ovate,, tapering to a short acute point, 3-celled ; valves 

 spreading horizontally, and bearing each a short compact gore of cotton 

 and seeds. Seeds, 7 or 8 in each cell or gore, where they are firmly 

 agglutinated in two ranks into a kidney-shaped mass (whence the name), 

 nearly naked or with a little fuzz adhering. 



Contents of a 3-celled capsule 93^ grs. ; viz., 23 seeds, 58 grs. ; cotton 

 35^ grs. or 38 per cent, of gross weight. 



Obs. — This is easily recognised among other sorts by the largish flat 

 leaves with broad short lobes, by the large pale involucres which are 

 conspicuous from a distance, and by the concrete seeds ; characters so 

 striking and constant as to warrant us in keeping it a distinct species 

 from all the foregoing. It is the Gossypium Peruvianum of Linnaeus (or 

 at least of modern authors) ; how it . got that appellation is to me a 

 mystery, for although it is found cultivated in small quantity in many 

 parts of South America, it is nowhere, not even in Peru, the common 

 cotton of the Indians. I must, however, confess that I have perhaps 

 nowhere seen a cotton plant truly wild. In ravines running down to 

 the sea at Chanduy and St. Elena, there are a few stunted cotton bushes, 

 which are leafless great part of the year, or sometimes for years together ; 

 but although they look wild enough, they have been derived from seeds 

 of plants which the Indians grow near their houses in the adjacent 

 villages, and render productive by constant watering. The cottons grown 

 by the Indians of the Amazon valley are varieties of G. larbadense, and 

 so are those of the Andine valleys, where there is no tradition of the 

 plant having been introduced ; and yet a truly wild specimen is 

 nowhere to be met with. 



The Rinon yields a very fine silky cotton, of a fair length, but the 

 crop is considered uncertain. In the middle of January the bushes 

 looked beautiful at Monte Abierto, round and spreading, and laden with 

 pods, of which I counted 400 on one plant. This was the first crop, on 

 plants nearly a year old, and the pods earliest to ripen were excellent ; 



