Lolium 



tributed, nowhere a common plant. It may be well 

 distinguished from rye-grass by its annual duration 

 and its long awns. 



Italian name, Loglio. 



Lotus. 



' genus haud unum . . . loto ' (Ge. ii. 83). 

 'lotos ' (Ge. iii. 394). 



It was recognized by Theophrastus that many 

 plants called lotus had nothing in common but the 

 name, and our passages refer to very different 

 species. The first is an enumeration of trees whose 

 genera have more than one species, and the tree 

 named is the nettle-tree (Celtis Australis). Though 

 closely akin to the elm and the nettle, it has for its 

 fruit a blackish drupe the size of a pea. Ovid and 

 Martial call it aquatic, but according to Arcangeli 

 its usual habitat is the debris of rocks. It has 

 somewhat ovate leaves with pubescent under- 

 surfaces. The wood was used for ' cardines ' — that 

 is, the uprights to which the planks of a door were 

 fastened, and which seem to survive in the pin of 

 a hinge. What tree Virgil classed with it there is 

 nothing to show. 



The ' lotus ' of our second passage is described as 

 good food for milch ewes. It probably covers 

 several species which still bear its name, and, if it 

 is the plant of Theophrastus, especially L. tenuis 

 and L. ubiginosus. These are of the same genus 

 as the bird's-foot trefoil or butter-and-eggs of our 



7 1 



