26 THE PLANT WORLD. 



Nuphar of the Arabs), which here has always white flowers, though in 

 India there are colored varieties, as with the N. stellata. The flowers 

 of the Lotus are also called "arays en Nil," sometimes by the Arabs, 

 and are equally common with the blue ones in wet ditches in the 

 delta, in the summer; the leaves are somewhat like those of the blue 

 Lily, but are always serrated, the petals are obtuse and less narrow 

 than those of N. stellata. The English white and yellow Water- 

 lilies {Nyviphcsa alba L. and Nuphar liitcuvi L. \N dumbo lutea Pers.]), 

 though frequent in Palestine, are not found in Egypt. 



As regards the antiquity of the Egyptian Water-lilies, the blue 

 one had in early days undoubtedly first place in ritual importance. 

 Entire blossoms of this species were found by Prof. Schweinfurth 

 in 1881, with their long stalks uninjured, among the outer bandages 

 of the mummy of Rameses II., now in the Gizeh Museum, and they 

 played a prominent part among plant remains found in 1881 

 among the great tomb discoveries of Deirel Bahari. The paintings 

 of the blue Lotus on the temple walls of the foregoing dynasties are 

 endless. The petals of the white Lotus were also found in the flower- 

 wreaths with which the breast of the mummy of Rameses II. was 

 adorned, but Dr. Schweinfurth is of the opinion that it played a much 

 less important part than the blue Lotus in the decoration of the dead, 

 even down to Ptolemaic times. As the flowers of the Neliunbium 

 speciosuni L. (or Sacred Bean of India, China and Japan) have never 

 been found in pre-Ptolemaic tombs or coffins, and are not depicted 

 on them, whilst Herodotus is the first who mentioned this plant in 

 Egypt, Dr. Schweinfurth considers that it must have been intro- 

 duced by the Persians, and brought into prominent culture during the 

 Grseco-Roman period. During the last 1,200 years of Arabo-Turkish 

 domination, both the Neliunbium and the Papyrus have disappeared 

 from general cultivation in Egypt, and are only found in a few gar- 

 dens here and there. 



R. W. Bloomfield, in The Garden, Aug. 6, 1898. 



While collecting fossil plants in the State of Washington during 

 the past season I discovered, about one mile north of the town of 

 Liberty, a deposit nearly a foot in thickness made up almost entirely 

 of gigantic palm leaves. They are of the ordinary palmate or palm- 

 leaf fan shape, with a petiole nearly an inch in diameter, and although 

 no absolutely perfect specimen could be obtained from the leaves 

 being so matted together, there is evidence that the leaves must have 

 been from four to six feet in diameter. It represents an undescribed 

 species of Sabal. — F. H. Knotvlton, U. S. National Museum, Wash- 

 ington, D. C. 



