Supplement to the Gardeners' Magazine, December 17, 1898 



F all flowers perhaps the 

 Lotus of the Eastern 



red, or white, 

 crushed and 



tropics 



surrounded dried and crushed up together. 



by the most subtle and size of an apple, 

 complex of all the forms 



, Fruit, "a substance like the lead of a peppy," edible; 

 dried it is " made into bread," seeds ard pulpy capsule' 



The rcot is eatable, rcund, about the 



of human mysticism and poetical romance. 

 By the Lotus is here meant the NelumbD, a 

 ngalese name for Nelumbium speciosum, the 

 Egyptian Bean of Pythagoras, the Lotus and 

 Tamara of the Hindoos, and the Lien Hao of the 



II.— " Another species of the (water) lily " (Nelumbium speciosum) 



14 and resembles the rose/' Flower 



" Grows like the Lotus in the river," 

 rose-coloured. Fruit looks like " 



a comb made by wasps." Seeds 



Chinese. In India, as also in Japan and China, this China, India, and Japan to-day. 



"eatable," "the size of an olive stone," eaten "both green and dried." 

 The root is not mentioned by Herodotus. It is long and jointed, each 

 section looking like a banana "finger," and it is crushed and eaten in 



regal flower is sacred, being looked upon as the ark 

 or floating shell of Vishnu, and the throne of Brahma, 

 and even in Thibet temples and altars are embellished and perfumed 

 by its flowers. How it came to be cultivated so largely in Egypt 

 in ancient times is not now known, but the probability is that it was 

 originally brought from the East as a food plant, and then after- 



That Herodotus actually saw and described the Nelumbo there can 

 be no doubt, the wasp's nest-like seed vessel settles that; but he is careful 

 to distinguish it from the true Lotus of Egypt, viz., Nymphaea Lotus,which 

 is an undoubted native, being found there in abundance to this day. The 

 Lotus (N. Lotus) is often found in the hieroglyphs, where it stands as a 

 symbol for the Upper Country or Southern Egypt. Its roots and seed 



wards became extremely popular, and was very highly valued for its heads are still eaten by the residents near to Lake Manzaleh, and the 



beauty, so highly indeed as to become almost sacred, and it was grown 

 extensively in canals and tanks adjoining the temples and palaces, much 

 as we see it in Ceylon, Persia, Cashmere, Thibet, China, Japan, and 

 Korea to-day. That the Nelumbo has been sacred from time immemorial 



in the East is well known, and in both Asia and Africa its rhizomes, leaf professional beauties of the time, 

 and flower stalks, and its seeds long have been and still are highly 

 valued as food, much as the fleshy roots of Asphode\ were valued in 



ancient Greece.* 



Now let us for once and all get a clear view^o* all 



The Lotus Lilies. 



rivulets and shallow pools near Damietta abound with this exquisitely 

 fragrant flower. There are red or rosy and white varieties, and it seems 

 to have been the rose of Egypt, the national flower in old times, and 

 was given to visitors to smell or made into wreaths and garlands for the 



Latin Name. 



Nyn pbcea Lotus ... 



stellata... 



Popular Name. 



Native 



Country 



» 1 



Egyptian Lotus 

 Blue Lotus 



caerulea 



Cape or 

 Lotus 



African ( _ 



Hope 



Africa and Asia 

 Tropical Afiica 

 and Asia 



Gooc 



of 



and 



Tio 



JNelttuLitm jpeciosum 



pical Africa 

 Lotus, or|A*ja and Tropica) 



Africa 



Indian 



Lotus of China 

 and Japan. 

 "The Rose of 



1 « 



luteum 



Egypt." 01 



Eg>ptian Bean 

 West Indian and 

 North American 

 Lotus, or Water 

 Chinquapin 



West Indies and 

 South Unittd 

 States 



Colour of 

 Flower. 



Rosy ted or white 

 Blue 



Blue 



Rose, peach, deep 

 red, flfsh, and 

 white, in many 

 foim* or varia- 



tions 



Primrose or clear 

 lemon yellow, 

 rarely white 



Volumes might be written about the Nelumbo, or Flower of Buddha, 

 and on the controversies that have taken place as to the meaning of the 

 word Lotus, and the actual identity of the plants to which the name 

 Lotus has by ancients and moderns been applied. The Nelumbium, in 

 one or other of its lovely forms, is found all over the East, in Ceylon, 

 India, China, Japan, the Malayan Archipelago, the Philippines, Persia, 

 and Cashmere, and it even extends to the shores of the Caspian Sea. 



Both Strabo (B.C. 54— A.D. 24) and Theophrastus (B.C. 374—285) mention that both the papyrus and the Nelumbo were grown in Lower Egypt over 



The description that Herodotus gives of it is this : " For greater 

 cheapness of living the marshmen practise certain peculiar customs, such 

 as these following ; — 



"They gather the blossoms of a certain water-lily, which grows in 

 great abundance all over the flat country, at the time when the Nile 

 rises and floods the regions along its banks — the Egyptians call it the 

 Lotus— they gather, I say, the blossoms of this plant, and dry them in 

 the sun, after which they extract from the centre of each blossom a 

 substance like the head of a poppy, which they crush and make into 

 bread. The root of the Lotus is likewise eatable, and has a pleasant, 

 sweet taste ; it is round, and about the size of an apple." 



Rawlinson adds a footnote stating that the " Nymphasa Lotus grows in 

 ponds and small canals in the delta during the inundation, which are dry 

 during the rest of the year, but it is not found in the Nile itself. It is 

 nearly the same as our white water lily." 



Though the N. Lotus and N. stellata, &c, were favourite flowers of 

 Egypt, there is no evidence of their having been sacred ; they were 

 always presented to guests at an Egyptian party, and garlands of these 

 sweet flowers were put round their heads and necks Both the pink and 

 white flowered X. Lotus, and also the blue N. stellata or N. crerulea, are 

 illustrated on Egyptian monuments. There are drawings existent on 

 rolls of papyrus in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, and elsewhere, 

 that might have been made yesterday in Japan, so true and life-like are 

 they in form and colour. Here one sees the Lotus flowers either held in 

 the hand for smelling, or fixed in a kind of clip on a small table or altar 

 before the principal characters in the scenes shown. On these rolls ot 

 Nile reed you see sacrificial oxen, with mitre-like crowns and garlands, 

 the ibis, and sparrow-hawks, and here and there the papyrus plant itself, 

 with its tasselled crown, is well shown. These drawings are supposed to 

 be nearly, if not quite, four thousand years old, and though they show 



it as being native of Egypt, and its form and contcur, in both bud and 

 blossoming, is very often represented on the capitals of columns, 

 chapiters, and other details of both Indian and Egyptian architecture ; 

 but I do not believe that the Nelumbo was ever indigenous to the Nile 

 Valley. That it was grown and highly valued there, both for use and 

 ornament, is quite true, but facts point to its having been an introduction 

 that became naturalised. As to this plant in Egypt, Herodotus (B.C. 4^4- 

 406) says : "There is another species of the lily in Egypt, which grows, 



a l u C ^ 0{yis \ m the WVCr, and resembles the rose. The fruit springs up 

 side by side with the blossom on a separate stalk, and has almost exactly 

 the look of a comb made by wasps. It contains a number of seeds about 

 the size of an olive stone, which are good to eat, and these are eaten 

 both green and dried." 



two thousand years B.C., yet we know that neither is truly indigenous 

 there to-day, a fact that may suggest that they were cultivated products 

 always, and not truly denizens of the marsh country where they were 



grown 



Water 



Herodotus, t 



"A certain water lily/ 3 Lotus (Nymph^ea Lotus). Flower rose- 



■Jgi KSttptJS* ?55 » £ — Ahi " " d l - ■ " ™ bad b«n in d* Has, W , 



Apart from drawings on the papyri, however, there are the actual 

 dried flowers of Nymphaea Lotus, and of N. stellata (so-called blue Lotus;, 

 taken from funeral or votive wreaths in tombs four thousand years old at 

 Dier-el-Bahara, and from the mummy cases, or graves of Ahmes L and 

 Rameses II., and now i n the museum at Cairo. 



In a room of the great temple at Karnac, in Thebes, are sculptured 

 portraits of plants that Thothmes III. brought home from "the Holy 

 Land, or Ruten, when he went to conquer it." Here are " water lilies 



as high as trees a ll sorts of trees, shrubs, leaves, flowers, ana 



fruits.' Are these tall water lilies Nelumbiums? Thus we see that it 



- - - «k lf t the true Lotus of Egypt (Nymphaea 

 sacred, though undoubtedly highly popular, but that the Eastern Lotus, 

 or Nelumbo, became valued in Eevot after its introduction, just as > 

 ^ been in the East from time immemorial. In a word, the wise oW 

 __ r> tian priests and scribes seem to have been like human nature 

 everywhere, m attaching a higher value to things introduced, or brougni 



appears as 



Thus we 

 Lotus) 



was 



