MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 27 
and broad petals rounded at the apex, the difference is usually 
evident, even in very crude representations (pl. 5, fig. 2). 
The blue lotus frequently appears in figures of social life. 
It was presented to the guests at convivial meetings, as well 
as at feasts for the dead. In carvings figured by Wilkinson 
the guests were distinguished from the hosts and servants 
by the wearing of lotus flowers (pl. 5, fig. 4). In most of the 
reproductions the flowers are considerably conventionalized, 
but Schweinfurth saw them in the temple of Ramses II at 
Abydos and on coffins of the Ptolemaie period, painted blue. 
An interesting Theban picture shows a pleasure boat, the 
water being represented by the characteristic wavy lines and 
further emphasized by the presence of the lotus leaves and 
flowers upon its surface (pl. 5, fig. 3). 
The ‘‘lotus’’ was also a favorite flower in religious observ- 
ances, being figured among offerings to the gods in the fourth 
dynasty and standing in front of Osiris at the judgment of 
the dead. According to the historian Diodorus, ‘‘When the 
Egyptians approached the divine place of worship they held 
the flower of the ‘Agrostis’ in their hand, indicating that man 
had proceeded from a well-watered or marshy land, and that 
he required a moist, rather than a dry aliment.’’ The 
Agrostis, according to Wilkinson, is another name for the 
lotus. Wiedemann says that the god Niefer Tum was figured 
as a man crowned with an uprising lotus flower (pl. 5, fig. 1), 
a symbol of the resurrection and of his power to grant con- 
tinuous life in the world to come. 
The earliest botanical knowledge of water-lilies dates from 
the Greek and Roman literature, but earlier writers became 
acquainted with the African species of water-lilies through 
traveling in Egypt. For instance, Herodotus states: ‘‘ When 
the river [Nile] is full and has made the plains like a sea, 
great numbers of lilies, which the Egyptians call lotus, spring 
up in the water; these they gather and dry in the sun, then 
having pounded the middle of the lotus, which resembles a 
poppy, they make bread of it and bake it. The root also of 
the lotus is fit for food, and is tolerably sweet, and is round, 
and of the size of an apple.’’ In a further description he 
states: ‘‘Lilies, like roses that grow in the river, the fruit of 
which is contained in a separate pod that springs up from the 
root, in form very much like a wasp’s nest; in this there are 
many berries fit to be eaten, of the size of an olive stone, and 
