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THE “LOTOS” OF THE ANCIENTS. 
By M. C. COOKE, M.A. 
[PLATE LXXIY.] 
T HE history of sacred plants is always an interesting and 
instructive study ; more so when it extends into a remote 
antiquity, and is associated with such great and advanced 
nations as those of Egypt and India. Much has been written 
and speculated concerning the Lotos of old authors ; and great 
confusion has existed in many minds, on account of the desire 
to make all allusions and descriptions to harmonise with one 
ideal plant — the classic Lotos. At the outset of our remarks 
we must clearly intimate that it is impossible to combine all 
the fragments of history and description applied to some plant, 
or plants, known by the name of Lotos — and met with in the 
pages of Herodotus, Homer, Theophrastus, and others — into one 
harmonious whole, and apply them to a single mythical plant. 
It is manifest, from the authors themselves, that more than one 
Lotos is spoken of, and it was never intended to convey the 
notion that, like immortal Jove, the Lotos was one and in- 
divisible. Starting, then, with the conviction that the one 
name has been applied to more than one or two very distinct 
and different plants, we shall have less difficulty than were we 
to attempt the futile task of reconciling all remarks about the 
Lotos to a single plant. 
In the first instance, it is perfectly clear that the Lotos of 
Homer, which Ulysses discovered, and which is alluded to in 
the ninth book of the 66 Odyssey,” is quite distinct from any of 
the rest. It is the fruit of this tree to which interest attaches, 
and not to the flower, as in some others. For the sake of dis- 
tinction, we shall speak of this as the “ arborescent Lotos,” 
and attempt its identification. 
The allusion to it by Homer will be more vividly present in 
the minds of readers than that of any other Lotos, since the 
story forms the basis of the “ Lotos-eaters ” of our own Tenny- 
son. It is thus rendered by Pope : — 
