Note 837 — BOOK XIX. THE NATURE AND CULTIVATION OF FLAX, AND AN ACCOUNT OF VARIOUS GARDEN PLANTS.
John Bostock translation
Our cotton, the Gossypium arboreum of Linnæus. See B. xii. c. 21. The terms xylon, byssus, and gossypium, must be regarded as synonymous, being applied sometimes to the plant, sometimes to the raw cotton, and sometimes to the tissues made from it. Gossypium was probably the barbarous name of the cotton tree, and byssus perhaps a corruption of its Hebrew name.