LO TUS JACOBiE'US. 
ST. JAMES’S ISLAND BIRD’S-FOOT TREFOIL. 
Class. Order. 
niADELPllIA. DECANDRIA. 
Natural Order. 
LEGUMlNOSiG. 
Native of 
Height. 
Flowers in 
Duration. 
Introduced 
C.Verd.Isl. 
18 inches. 
Aug. Oct. 
Perennial. 
in 1714. 
No. 326. 
The origin of the word Lotus really appears to be 
too deeply buried in oblivion to admit of even a 
speculation. All that can be ventured, is the pro- 
bability of its having been used by the Greeks, after 
the Egyptians; and it has usually been the name of 
a vegetable, useful for food, either to man or beast. 
The trivial name, Jacobaeus, is given in allusion to 
the island on which it was discovered. 
This species of Lotus, which is remarkable for its 
very dark-coloured flowers, has long been cultivated 
as a favourite green-house perennial. Having put 
plants of it into the borders, during the summer, we 
found them succeed admirably. In the following 
season, we raised seedlings, and put these also into 
the borders, where they flowered in perfection, dur- 
ing the latter part of the summer. Thus may the 
Lotus Jacobaeus, though a green-house peremiial, be 
cultivated as an annual, and it will constitute a pretty 
ornament of the open parterre. 
Seeds should be planted in March or April, in 
pots, about two or three in each, and forwarded in 
a hotbed. In May, they should be turned into the 
borders without disturbing their roots. 
llort. Kew. 2, v. 4, 394. 
