THE 
AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY. 
SEPTEMBER,    187  1. 
ON  COTTON  SEEDS. 
By  Prof.  F.  A.  Fluckiger. 
From  an  excellent  monograph  on  this  subject,  reprinted  from  the 
June  number  of  N.  Jahrh.f.  Pharm.,  and  communicated  bj  the  au- 
thor, we  make  the  following  extracts  : 
Linnaeus  described  five  distinct  cotton  plants  :  Ciossypium  arhoreum^ 
Q.  herhaceum^  Cr.  harhadense^  Gr.  hirsutum  and  Gr.  religiosum.  Re- 
cently Parlatore,  in  his  monograph,  Le  Specie  dei  Cotoni,"  (Firenze, 
1866,  64  pp.  4to.,  6  folio  plates)  confirmed  these  species,  and  added 
two  more  from  Polynesia — Gr.  sandvicense  and  Gr.  ta'itense.  The 
eighth  species,  ^.  anomalumy  Wawra  et  Peyritsch  [Gr,  senarense, 
Fenzl,)  belongs  to  tropical  Africa.*  All  these  plants  are  perennial  ; 
but  only  Gr.  religiosum  produces  stout  stems,  about  twenty-five  feet  in 
height ;  the  stems  of  the  others  become  woody,  reach,  however,  barely 
a  height  of  four  meters,  with  a  diameter  of  a  few  centimeters.  When 
cultivated,  they  mostly  become  annual  or  biennial,  and  remain  herba- 
ceous. 
The  first  two  species  in  the  above  list  belong  to  the  hot  countries 
of  Asia,  and  were  known  in  early  history.  The  Florentine  museum 
has  capsules  and  seeds  from  ancient  Egyptian  sepulchres,  which,  ac- 
cording to  Parlatore,  are  derived  from  Gr.  arhoreum.  Theaphrastos,f 
in  the  fourth  century  before  Christ,  described  a  cotton  plant.  Gr, 
barbadense,  hirsutum  and  religiosum  originally  inhabited  the  tropical 
*  Oliver,  flora  of  tropical  Africa,  I,  London,  1868,  211.    G.  anomalum  is  re- 
markable for  the  linear  and  entire  parts  of  the  epicalyx. 
t  Hiat.  plantar.  4,  7,  7. 
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