Lotus
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Lotus. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a name applied to at least three water lilies: the yellow nelumbo or water chinquapin of India, North Africa, and the United States as far northwest as Minnesota; the blue water-lily; and the large white water-lily of the Nile. The last named is the lotus of the Nile. It was the favorite flower of Egypt. The peasants ate the root. Ladies carried the flower for its fragrance, and architects shaped the capitals of columns to represent the flowerbud. It is now to be found only in pools of the Delta, and in the upper waters of the Nile. The nelumbo or Indian lotus was the symbol of female beauty among the Chinese, and was a sacred flower among the Hindus, whose idols were seated on a lotuslike throne. See Water Lily Lotus-eaters, a name given by Homer to a tribe on the northern coast of Africa who lived on the berries of the lotus tree or shrub. The plant is in no way related to the lotus water lily . The natives also made a sweet wine from its fruit. Ulysses and his companions, on their return from the siege of Troy, were kindly entertained by these people, but, eating the fruit of the lotus, they lost all ambition and all desire to seek their native land. A "lotus eater," then, is one whose delight in foreign pleasures has deprived him of a desire to return. The term is applied also to one who in dreamy, absent-minded contemplation of air castles forgets home affairs and everyday duties.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a name given by the Greeks to a number of different plants whose fruit was used for food. One of the most notable of these is the Zizyphus lotus of the N. of Africa and the S. of Europe, a shrub belonging to the natural order Rhamnex. The fruit of the Diospyrus Lotus, or date plum, is the European lote. The name lotus was also given to several beautiful species of water lily, especially to the blue water lily (Nymphæa cærulea) and the Egyptian water lily (N. lotus), which grow in stagnant and slowly running water in the S. of Asia and N. of Africa. The Nymphæa lotus grows in the Nile and adjacent rivulets, and has a large white in the flower. It frequently appears hieroglyphs, where it represents the Upper Country of southern Egypt, and entered largely into works of art the capitals of columns, prows of boats, heads of staves, and other objects being fashioned in its shape. In the mythology of the Hindus and Chinese, the lotus which plays a distinguished part PIERRE LOTI is the Nelumbo. ber of the French Academy. His works
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Both accounts file the nelumbo alongside the water lilies — Aiton's 1910 entry simply says "See Water Lily" — but molecular work in the 1990s broke that link: the sacred lotus, Nelumbo nucifera, now sits in its own family, Nelumbonaceae, and its nearest relatives are the plane trees and proteas rather than Nymphaea. The plant has also become a laboratory favourite twice over: seeds recovered from a dry lake bed in northeastern China germinated after some thirteen centuries, and the self-cleaning microstructure of its leaves, popularised as the "lotus effect," is now imitated in water-repellent paints and fabrics. The nelumbo that Aiton's called "the symbol of female beauty among the Chinese" was adopted as India's national flower after independence, while the Egyptian white lily the 1910 writer found only "in pools of the Delta" has been widely replanted in gardens and hotel ponds. The Homeric lotus-eaters are still generally placed on Djerba, off Tunisia, and still associated with the fruit of Zizyphus lotus, as Collier's had it in 1921.
Written for this edition, 2026.