The New Student's Reference Work/Lotus

Lo'tus, a name applied to the most widely different plants. The Lotus of botanists is a genus of about 100 species found in temperate regions and belonging to the well-known pea-family, a genus probably not known at all in a popular way. The lotus referred to by the Greeks probably was the species (L. corniculatus) spoken of to-day as the bird's-foot tree-foil. The African lotus has given certain tribes the name of lotus-eaters, and the fruit was said to be the size of an olive and to have the sweetness of honey and the taste of a date. A number of shrubby desert forms have been pointed out as the probable lotus of the lotus-eaters. The Egyptian lotus, the sacred lotus of the Nile, is Nymphœa lotus, a large water-lily with rose-colored as well as white flowers. The Hindoo and Chinese lotus, also called the sacred bean, is a Nelumbo, another genus of the water-lily family.