Silk-cotton.

Silk-cotton. Under this name various silky fibres are from time to time brought from tropical countries to Europe; they are all of the same general character, and are chiefly produced by the trees composing the genus Bombax and other genera included in the natural order Malvaceæ. These trees are natives of the tropical parts of Asia, Africa, Australia, and America. The fibre fills their large woody capsules, enveloping the seeds contained in them, and is produced in great abundance; but is too short, too smooth, and too soft to be spun into yarn by machinery. Silk-cotton is, however, used for stuffing pillows, mattresses, sofas, &c. to a limited extent in England, but more largely in Holland, where a long-stapled variety is obtained from Java. One of the best-known silk-cotton trees is Bombax malabaricum, a very large soft- wooded tree growing in India, Burma, Java, and North Australia. Its fibre is called simal. Another of these trees is Eriodendron anfractuosum, which is found in tropical countries of both hemispheres, and which yields the fibre known in India as rapok. Cochlospermum gossypium, a small Indian tree, also yields a silk-cotton. A beautiful fibre of this kind is obtained in the West Indies from Ochroma lagopus. Vegetable silk, which, like silk-cotton, is only suitable for stuffing, is the covering of the seeds of Chorisia speciosa, a Brazilian tree.