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   GIUSEPPE DEVINCENZI
   shaggy, or rough, black at the point. It is divided iuto branches, alternate, spreading, pyramidal; its leaves are dee-ply cordai at the base, are cut in live short lobes, ovai, rounded, aud with a small point They are soft and of a pale green coloni', and have beneath them a gland on the middle nerve alone. The petioles are from two to tliree iuehes long, and with a black point. Each petiole has at the base two lanceolate stipules opposite, and somewhat crooked; the flowers rising out of the leaves are supported by peduncles shorter than the petioles. They have a doublé calyx, the outer one larger than the inner one, consistiug of three small leaves, fiat, almost fibrous, cut into many deep linear teeth, and, therefore, almost unravelled. The internai calyx has one sepal, cup-formed, with the border blunted aud fìne-fibred. The corolla has live petals, united at the bas'i, aud arrauged in the form of a beli of a yellow colour, with the unguis spotted purply red; after drying, it becoiues red altogether. The stamens are, iu great uumber, united in a tube, traversed by the pistil, which is divided at the top into two or three segments. The fruit is an ovate-capsule, of fhe size of a small nut, opening by four valves, with as many small cells. The seeds are almost rouud, about the size of a small bean, and they are wrapped about with the dirty and dull-coloured whitish cottou wool, and wheu this cotton wool is picked off, there stili adheres to the seeds a greyish down.
   This species of cotton is supposed to have come origi-ually from Africa, whence, by meaus of cultivation, it be-came propagated in Greece, iu Malta, in Sicily, and iu many places of the Levant. Amougst us, this is the species of cotton most generally cultivated in Apulia, under the uame of white cotton, to distinguish it from the Camoscio, which is called red cotton, and from the Siamese white cottou, which is termed Turkish, of Bianco gentile. The cotton wool gathered from this Ilerlaceous plant is of a coarse quality, rather greyish than white, dull, and not sliining, and can onlx be employed in our old native manufactures, especially for qui Its, stock ings, and coarse textures, which have always