4H FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. 



Venus, the goddess of beauty, and, as the most sacred 

 flower, may be offered to all the gods. The conclu- 

 sion to be arrived at from close investigation is, that 

 the sacred lotos of Egypt was the Nymphcea, whilst 

 the sacred lotos of India was, and still is, the 

 Ndumbium. The latter was the symbol of fertility 

 in Egypt as in India, and the' god Horus, the personi- 

 fication of the rising sun, was decorated with a wreath 

 of its flowers and buds, and was sometimes figu- 

 ratively represented as a lotus springing from the 

 waters. 1 There are few plants richer in association 

 than water lilies. Their flowers are yellow in the 

 ponds of Northern Europe, white or yellow in England, 

 blue and fragrant in Persia and Cashmere, and red in 

 Southern India. The Egyptian lily is white, tinted 

 with rose, and that of India is said to have been 

 similar, till it was stained by the blood of Siva, 

 wounded by the Hindoo Cupid Kamadeva. It is the 

 latter that is alluded to in Lalla Rookh : — 



As bards have seen him in their dreams 

 Down the blue Ganges laughing glide 

 Upon a rosy Lotos wreath. 



From Egypt and India we pass to Greece and 

 Rome, yet it is not our intention to linger here, as 

 but little importance can be attached, to the flowers 

 of Greek and Roman mythology. They never held 



1 "Gardener's Chronicle," July i, 1876, p. 7. 



