II.

Cotton Plants

Cotton is produced by small trees and shrubs of a genus belonging to the mallow family, which also includes hibiscus, hollyhock, and the common mallow. The immature flower bud, called a square, blooms and develops into an oval fruit called a boll that splits open at maturity, revealing a mass of long white hairs, called lint, that cover the numerous brown or black seeds. When fully mature and dry, each of these hairs is a thin flattened tubular cell with a pronounced spiral twist, and is attached to a seed. The length of the individual fibres ranges from 1.3 to 6 cm (y to 2y in). Shorter fibres that grow from the seeds are called linters.

Several species are grown commercially; these range from a small tree of Asia, to the common American Upland cotton, a low, multibranched shrub that is grown as an annual. Another species includes the long-fibre Egyptian and Sea Island cottons botanically derived from an Egyptian species. Sea Island cotton thrives in the unique climate of the Sea Islands, located off the south-eastern coast of the United States, and on the islands of the Caribbean such as Barbados. As with Egyptian cotton, the fibre is white and lustrous but its length is greater than that of any other type of cotton, which permits the spinning of extremely fine yarns. Pima, originally called American-Egyptian cotton, is a hybrid type.

It is almost impossible to determine the native distributions of the various species of cotton. Scientists have determined that fibre and boll fragments from the Tehuacán Valley of Mexico are about 7,000 years old. The plant has certainly been grown and used in India for at least 5,000 years and probably for much longer. Cotton was used also by the ancient Chinese, Egyptians, and indigenous inhabitants of North and South America.