vegetable wool

And yet both Africa and America made cotton cloth from the vegetable wool long before we knew of it otherwise than as a traveller's wonder.

From The Romance of Industry and Invention by Robert Cochrane

Of this vegetable wool, or cotton, they fabricate various kinds of pure white cloth, some of which I have seen as fine as our best lawns, if not finer.

From A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 09 Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time by Robert Kerr

This was because of the 'vested interests' in wool and silk, which combined to keep out the vegetable wool from general use.

From The Romance of Industry and Invention by Robert Cochrane

The best operatives of Lancashire were attracted sooner or later to assist the triumphs of art over the vegetable wool.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 5 "Cosway" to "Coucy" by Various

He then showed her the vegetable wool and vegetable hair he had collected, and told her where they grew.

From Foul Play by Charles Reade