The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary

COTTON OR WOOL?

   Half plant, half animal, the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary stems from the Middle Ages—a traveler's tale from the Far East. Its full name: Planta Tartarica Barometz—the word "barometz being the Tartar name for "lamb."
The fruit of this animal-tree was cotton, but European travelers, who knew nothing of cotton at that time, took it for wool—a fabric they did know.
   Wool, they reasoned, came from sheep. So arose the legend of the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary. The cotton was considered to be the fleece of lambs that grew from the tree and were attached to it by their navels.
It was said that the plant bent to let the lambs graze and that when they had eaten all the grass around, the lambs and the plant died.

The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary