ZIZYPHUS LOTUS, OR RHAMNUS LOTUS— THE LOTUS TREE. 
Class V. PENTANDRIA.— Order III. TRIGYNIA. 
Natural Order, RH AMNEJ1. — THE BUCK-THORN TRIBE. 
The Lotus is a tree of no great height, rough and thorny, with leaves ovate, retuse, toothletted, and are as 
well as the branchlets, smooth, prickles wanting or in twin, one of them recurved ; drupe ovate, oblong. 
Native of Syria, from whence it has been introduced into Europe. Flowers of a greenish yellow, 2 or 3 
together. Fruit saffron coloured, having a sweet granular pulp. This tree is cultivated for its fruits in 
many parts of the south of Europe, where it is called Jujube. In Italy and Spain the fruit is served at the 
table in desserts, during the winter season as a dry sweetmeat. It is sold in the markets in the towns of 
Italy and Spain. The tree is said to have been first introduced into Italy from Syria by Sextus Pampinius, 
in the time of Augustus Caesar. The fruit is also sold in abundance in the markets of Constantinople 
under the name of Hunnab-agaghi, and which has for a long time been imported into the west of Europe 
under the name of Jujube. The Turks plant the trees before their coffee-houses with other trees, to enjoy 
the shade and fruit in their season. It grows wild in Africa, especially in the kindom of Tunis, in a tract 
called Jereed, which was formerly the country of the Lotophagi. The Lotophagi as the Greeks call them, 
possessed a considerable part of the sea coast, between the two Syrtes, the island of Meninx (now Jerba) and 
the coast beyond it as far as the lake and river Tritonis to the Machlies. Scylax extends the name to the 
tribes between the two Syrtes. Ptolemy limits them to the neighbourhood of the river Cinyps, while He- 
rodotus appears to confine them to the west of that river. Strabo places them in the neighbourhood of 
Jerba, although he calls the adjoining Syrtes that of the Lotophagi. Pliny assigns them, in addition to the 
island, the environs of the Syrtes also. But the allotment of this confined space to the eaters of lotos was 
owing to the want of a more extended knowledge of the countries that border on the desert, for it appears 
that the tribes who inhabit them eat universally of this fruit, in a greater or less degree, and most of them 
apparently as much as they can obtain of it. The Arabs know the plant by the name of Seedra. A kind of 
wine is made from the fruit by expression, and diluted with water, but this will not keep more than a few 
days. 
Mungo Park, in his travels in the interior of Africa, observed two negroes sitting among some thorny 
bushes, who had been gathering tomberongs, of which he gives this account : — “ These are small farinaceous 
berries, of a yellow colour and delicious taste, which were no other than the fruit of the Rhamnus Lotus of 
Linnaeus. They had gathered two large baskets full in the course of the day. These berries are much 
esteemed by the natives, who convert them into a sort of bread, by exposing them for some days to the 
sun, and afterwards pounding them gently in a wooden mortar, until the farinaceous part of the berry is 
separated from the stone. This meal is then mixed with a little water, and formed into cakes, which when 
dried in the sun, resemble in colour and flavour the sweetest gingerbread. The stones are afterwards put 
into a vessel of water, and shaken about, so as to separate the meal, which may still adhere to them, this 
communicates a sweet and agreeable taste to the water, and with the addition of a little pounded millet 
makes a pleasant gruel called fondi which is the common breakfast in many parts of Ludamar, during the 
months of February and March. The fruit is collected by spreading a cloth upon the ground, and beating 
the branches with a stick. The Lotus is very common in all the kingdoms which I visited, but is found in 
greatest plenty on the sandy soil of Kaarta, Ludamas, and the northern parts of Bambarra ; where it is one 
of the most common shrubs of the country. “ As this shrub is found in Tunis, and also in the Negro 
kingdoms, and as it furnishes the natives of the latter with a food resembling bread, and also with a sweet 
liquor which is much relished by them, there can be little doubt of its being the Lotus mentioned by Pliny 
as the food of the Libyan Lotophagi.” 
