PLATE CCCXCI. 
NYMPHAA ErOT US, 
The Agyptian Lotus. 
| CLASS XII. ORDER I. . 
POLYANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Many Chives. One Pointal. 
ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER. 
Biossom many-petaled.. Empalement 4- or 
5-leaved. Berry many-celled, with many 
seeds in each cell. 
Corotra polypetala. Calyx 4-s. 5-phyllus. 
Bacca multilocularis, loculis polysper- 
S. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTER, &c. 
Nymrn a, foliis cordatis dentatis glaberrimis Nympu#a, with heart-shaped dentated very 
lobis approximatis, calyce tetraphyllo. smooth leaves, with the lobes approxi- 
Willd. Sp. Pl. 2. 1153. mated, and a four-leaved empaiement, 
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE. 
_ 1. The seed-bud and pointal. 2. A chive. 3. A transverse section of the seed-bud. 4. A capsule. 
(nn Rr 
Tuere can be no doubt, but that the plant here figured is the true ‘‘ Nymphea Lotus” of Linneus, 
and that it is the plant mentioned by Pi 
ere makes mention of a plant which is found at the ebbing of the Nile, the fruit of which resembles 
a poppy, and the seed of the size of millet: this exactly answers to the ‘* Nymphza” before us, and 
does not at all apply to the «« Nelumbium,” uts : 
he also remarks that the heads are dried by the natives, and that the seed is beat and broken and made 
into bread.—Herodotus also mentions that the Egyptians baked the seed into bread, and ate of the roots 
ipo- 
Sonnini, in his Voyages, mentions the Lotus as being most abundant in Egypt, and having white 
flowers ; and I apprehend the red one to be nothing but a variety of this. — 
When we know that the Egyptians worship the Nile, as the Indians do the Ganges, we ‘cannot 
wonder that a plant so beautiful, and so abundant in that river, should also become an object of adora- 
tion ; and we find it continually though roughly engraved on their idols, —Indeed Pierius, in his Hiero- 
glyphics, mentions that the Egyptians worshipped the Lotus as the type of the rising Sun.—It is always 
found on the statues of Osiris, the Egyptian Apollo ; it is also to be seen on the medals struck in Egypt 
by the Romans, and especially during the reign of Adrian, who held it in such veneration, that the me- 
dals which that Emperor caused to be struck in Egypt, in honour of his favourite Antinoiis, uniformly 
represent the latter with the Lotus on his head 3 whence the expression *‘ Antinoéan crown.” —Various 
animals in the Hieroglyphics appear to have it, as the hawk, the lion, and the ram. It is to be seen on 
most of, though not all, their deities; as Jupiter Ammon, Iris, Serapis, Orus, Canopus, and most 
particularly on Harpocrates, who is often figured sitting in the midst of it. per’s tes, 
passim. ‘The Lotus symbolizes Plenty on many of the medals of Egypt and Sicily, probably from being 
} ol 5 and as the 
Ganges is w =~ may the Lotus be, with which it abounds. It expands in the dusk of the 
oming. oe 
‘o the Right Honourable the Marquis of Blandford we are indebted for the description of this v 
Pe) ioe : fe pti very 
interesting plant, accompanied by a fine living specimen from his splendid collection at White Knights 
near Reading, Berks, 
a> = We eC. ee 
—— 
