HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 5 
Dr. Planchon, in the seventh volume of the Flore des Serres, gives an 
interesting account of this and two other Egyptian plants, of "which we 
have made a translation below. 
"We will endeavor to give an account of the history of the Egyptian 
Lotus, a history for a long time obscured by the errors of modern commen- 
tators, better versed in the study of languages than in that of natural his- 
tory, and completely elucidated by Savigny and Delile, two members of the 
scientific commission of the celebrated expedition to Egypt. 
Without speaking of the Lotus of Homer, which Desfontaines thought 
he could identify with a species of Jujube {Ziziphus Lotus), three plants of 
the family of Nymphseacese have borne among the ancients the name of 
Lotus. These are : 
1st. The Nym'phijRa Lotus of Linnseus, a species which must pass for the 
Lotus par excellence, because it is this which Herodotus and Theophrastus 
have so designated. These authors have characterized it in a sufficiently 
evident manner by the white color of its flowers, which they compare to 
the lily, by the alimentary use of its root-shaped tubercle, {corsion of the 
Greeks,) and by its little seeds, like those of Millet. 
This species is still very common in the waters of Lower Egypt, and 
became the type of a special section [Lotus DC.) in the genus Nenuphar, 
and very near to the NympTicea dentata (Flore des Serres, tab. 627-8.) 
Leaves, with sharpened and prickly teeth, and very prominent netted veins, 
and white flowers with anthers, without appendage, easily distinguish it 
from the following. 
2d. The Nymphcea ccerulea. ■ For a long time not well-known to botanists, 
this species was described by Savigny, at the commencement of the present 
century. Herodotus, Theophrastus, Pliny, and most of the ancient authors 
make no mention of it. Anthen^us only, according to the observation of 
the late Prof. Delile, signalized it as the blue Lotus, of which were made 
the crowns called lotines: while they called Antinoiens, those made of the 
flowers of the red Lotus [Nelumhium speciosum). This blue Lotus of 
Athenseus, the type of the section Cyanea of the Nenuphars, abounds still 
in our days, in the same localities as the white Lotus. The Arabs call it 
especially Baclienin, reserving for the true Lotus the name of Kaufar: 
they designate both by the epithet oi arais el Nil (spouses of the Nile), a 
graceful symbolical expression, which makes allusion to the connection 
observed between the appearance of these flowers and the inundations 
which fertilize Egj^pt. 
" The Egyptians gather the roots of the Lotus when the Nile retires 
