CHAP. III.] 



VARIETIES OF THE LOTUS. 



123 



The chief ornaments of these neglected sheets of water 

 are the large red and white Lotus 1 , whose flowers may be 

 seen from a great distance reposing on their broad green 

 leaves. The black seeds of these plants are not unlike 

 little acorns in shape, and in China and some parts of India 

 they are served at table in place of almonds, which they are 

 said to resemble, but with a superior delicacy of flavour. 

 At some of the tanks where the lotus grows in profu- 

 sion in Ceylon, I tasted the seeds enclosed in the torus 

 of the flowers, and found them white and delicately- 

 flavoured, not unlike the small kernel of the pine 

 cone of the Apennines. This red lotus of the island 

 appears to be the one that Herodotus describes as 

 abounding in the Nile in his time, but which is now 

 extinct ; with a flower resembling a rose, and a fruit in 

 shape like a wasp's nest, containing seeds of the size 

 of an olive stone, and of an agreeable flavour. 2 But 

 it has clearly no identity with those which he des- 

 cribes as the food of the Lotophagi of Africa, of the size 

 of the mastic 3 , sweet as a date, and capable of being 

 made into wine. 



One species of the water lily, the Nymphcea rubra, with 

 small red flowers, and of great beauty, is common in the 

 ponds near Jaffna and in the Wanny; and I found in 

 the fosse, near the fort of Moeletivoe, the beautiful blue 

 lotus, N. stellata, with lilac petals, approaching to purple 

 in the centre, which had not previously been supposed to 

 grow on the island. 



Another very interesting aquatic plant, which was disco- 

 vered by Dr. Gardner in the tanks north of Trincomalie, is 

 the Desmanthus natans, with highly sensitive leaves float- 



1 Nelumbium speciosum. 



2 Herodotus, b. ii. s. 92. 



3 The words are " ta 



oaov rt Tije ffxivov" (Herod, b. iv. s. 

 177) ; and as axivog means also a squill 

 or a sea-onion, the fruit above referred 

 to, as the food of the Lotophagi, must 

 have been of infinitely larger size 

 and in every way different from the 



lotus of the Nile, described in the 

 2nd book, as well as from the lotus 

 in the East. Lindley records the 

 conjecture that the article referred to 

 by Herodotus was the nabk, the berry 

 of the lote-bush (Zizyphtts lotus), 

 which the Arabs of Barbary still eat. 

 ( Vef/etabte Kingdom, p. 582.) 



