Chap. 21 (10.) — Trees of the Islands of the Persian Sea. The Cotton Tree
In the same gulf, there is the island of Tylos,485 covered with a forest486 on the side which looks towards the East, where it is washed also by the sea at high tides. Each of the trees is in size as large as the fig; the blossoms are of an indescribable sweetness, and the fruit is similar in shape to a lupine, but so rough and prickly, that it is never touched by any animal. On a more elevated plateau of the same island, we find trees that bear wool, but of a different nature from those of the Seres;487 as in these trees the leaves produce nothing at all, and, indeed, might very readily be taken for those of the vine, were it not that they are of smaller size. They bear a kind of gourd, about the size of a quince;488 which, when arrived at maturity, bursts asunder and discloses a ball of down, from which a costly kind of linen cloth is made.
(11.) This tree is known by the name of gossypinus:489 the smaller island of Tylos, which is ten miles distant from the larger one, produces it in even greater abundance.