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doubt of its being the Lotos mentioned by Pliny as the food 
of the Libyan Lotophagi.” 
The characteristics of the jujube family are so much those 
described as pertaining to the classical Lotos, that no botanist 
appears to dissent from the conclusion that some species of 
Zizyphus is meant, and even at the time of Linnseus that par- 
ticular species was indicated to which he applied the name of 
Rhctmnus Lotus. It may be taken for granted, then, that 
during the intervening period, if this determination had been 
based upon insufficient grounds, or had a more promising can- 
didate for the honour been discovered, some decided protest 
would have been entered against the pretender. 
The application of the same trivial name to a species of 
Diospyros (the D. Lotus) cannot in itself be accepted as an as- 
sumption that it had claims to be regarded as the true Lotos in 
opposition to the jujube. 
Whatever else the plant might be that is mentioned by Ovid 
as the Lotos, it was evidently arborescent. It occurs in the 
ninth book of his “ Metamorphoses,” where the nymph Lotis, 
fleeing from Priapus, is transformed into 
A flowery plant which still preserves her name; 
and in the transformation of Dryope into such a tree for pluck- 
ing the flowers of the 66 watery Lotos ” for the amusement of her 
infant son, it is said that — 
The spring was new, and all the verdant boughs, 
Adorn’d with blossoms, promised fruits that vie 
In glowing colours with the Tyrian dye. 
This may be the poetical romance of the origin of the Libyan 
Lotos. 
The second Lotos may be designated as the Sacred Lotos, or 
Lotos of the Nile. It is the one which figures so conspicuously 
on the monuments, enters so largely into the decoration, and 
seems to have been interwoven with the religious faith of the 
Ancient Egyptians. This Lotos is mentioned by Herodotus, Theo- 
phrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, and Athenaeus as an herbaceous 
plant of aquatic habits, and from their combined description it 
seems evident that some kind of water-lily is intended. “ When 
the river is full, and the plains are inundated, there grow in 
the water numbers of lilies which the Egyptians call Lotos ” 
(Herodotus). “ The Lotos, so called, grows chiefly in the 
plains when the country is inundated. The flower is white, 
the petals are narrow, as those of the lily, and numerous, as 
of a very double flower. When the sun sets they cover the 
seed-vessel, and as soon as the sun rises the flowers open, 
and appear above the water ; and this is repeated, until the 
