GOSSYPIUM HERBACEUM.-THE COMMON COTTON TREE. 
Class XVI. 
Natural Order. 
MONADELPHIA. Order VIII. POLYANDRIA. 
BOMB ACEiE.-' THE COTTON TREE TRIBE. 
« Seed. 
Calyx cup-shaped, obtusely five-toothed, surrounded by a three-leaved involucel, with the leaves united 
and cordate at the base and deeply cut or toothed irregularly. Style simple, marked with three or five 
furrows towards the apex. Stigmas usually three, sometimes five. Capsules three-five-celled, three-five 
valved at the apex, loculi cidal. Seeds numerous, imbedded in cotton. Young branches and leaves more or 
less conspicuously covered with little black dots ; nerves below, usually with one or more glands. 
*M. Rohr has long ago pointed out from many years experience in the West Indies, that constant 
characters could not be obtained from the shape of the leaves, their glands, or the involucel, but must be 
looked for in the seed. Dr. F. Buchanan Hamilton (Linn. Trans, v. xiii. page 492,) makes the same re- 
mark, and adds, that “ the plant being annual, or growing to a small tree with a woody stem lasting for 
years, is a mere accidental circumstance, owing to the manner of treatment. In dividing the genus into 
species, we therefore follow this last writer, who mentions that the pubescence is a better criterion than 
either the number and form of the lobes of the leaf, or the number of the glands, for distinguishing the 
varieties.” M. Rohr divides the cotton plants with which he was acquainted into, 1 those with seeds 
black and rough, 2 with seeds brownish black and veined, 3 seeds sprinkled with short hairs ; 4 
seeds completely covered with a close down, which characters, combined with the colour of the cotton and 
its mode of attachment to the seed, and the shape of the seed, we recommend to the attention of those who 
have the means of studying them in the living state ; as it is almost necessary that dried specimens in leaf, 
flower, and ripe fruit, be accompanied by remarks, before botanists can clear up this genus with any kind of 
satisfaction. — Prodromus Flora Peninsula India Orientalis. 
There are several species of the cotton tree. The common Levant cotton, which is cultivated in 
several islands of the Archipelago, becomes, in six months, as large as a European quince. It bears rich 
sulphur-coloured flowers, which are very large and beautiful. After they fall, a head of seed appears, which, 
when it comes to maturity, bursts open, scatters its contents, and discovers the white cotton. In China 
the variety is particularly cultivated that produces the cloth called Nankeen. The down covering the seed 
is called cotton wool, which is white in the common plant, but in this it has the tinge it preserves when 
spun and woven into cloth. In India the bees find singular habitations. On one cotton tree, say some 
recent travellers, a gentleman counted a hundred and eighty distinct hives, belonging to as many swarms. 
It might indeed be called “ a realm of bees,” comprehending so many towered cities, “ filled with the busy 
hum ” of their industrious population. The natives take these nests in the night time, by making a fire 
under the tree ; they ascend the stem, wrapped in a thick woollen cloth, and when they have reached the 
boughs, they cut off the combs, leaving them to fall upon the ground. The Barbadoes cotton tree has a 
stem from six to fifteen feet high, is propagated by seed, set in rows, about five feet asunder, and produces 
two crops annually. Each plant is reckoned to yield about a pound weight. When the pods are nearly 
expanded, the wool is picked and laid in small quantities on a machine made with two rollers ; whence it 
falls into a sack placed underneath and leaves the seed behind. The cotton is then carefully picked, cleaned, 
and stowed in bags, where it is well trodden down, that it may be close and compact ; the marketable weight 
of each being three hundred pounds. An acre produces on an average, nearly that quantity. As cotton is 
easily grown and collected, the patient industry and simple habits of the people by whom it was cultivated 
enabled them to send to Europe their manfactured stuffs, of a fine and durable quality, even from the time 
of the ancient Greeks. Before the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope, cotton 
goods were very costly in Europe. M. Saywell observes, that though cotton stuffs were cheaper than silk, 
which was formerly sold for its weight in gold, they still could only be purchased by the most wealthy, and 
* For the chief part of the following account we are indebted to Dr. Royle’s splendid work “ Illustrations of the Botany, &c., of the 
Himalayan Mountains.” 
