1: Nelumbium speciosum.
2: Herodotus, b. ii. s. 92.
3: The words are "[Greek: Esti megathos hoson te tês schinou]" (Herod. b. iv. s. 177); and as [Greek: schinos] means also a squill or a sea-onion, the fruit above referred to, as the food of the Lotophagi, must have been of infinitely larger size and in every way different from the lotus of the Nile, described in the 2nd book, as well as from the lotus in the East. Lindley records the conjecture that the article referred to by Herodotus was the nabk, the berry of the lote-bush (Zizyphus lotus), which the Arabs of Barbary still eat. (Vegetable Kingdom, p. 582.)
One species of the water lily, the Nymphæa rubra, with small red flowers, and of great beauty, is common in the ponds near Jaffna and in the Wanny; and I found in the fosse, near the fort of Moeletivoe, the beautiful blue lotus, N. stellata, with lilac petals, approaching to purple in the centre, which had not previously been supposed to be a native of the island.
Another very interesting aquatic plant, which was discovered by Dr. Gardner in the tanks north of Trincomalie, is the Desmanthus natans, with highly sensitive leaves floating on the surface of the water. It is borne aloft by masses of a spongy cellular substance, which occur at intervals along its stem and branches, but the roots never touch the bottom, absorbing nourishment whilst floating at liberty, and only found in contact with the ground after the subsidence of water in the tanks.[1]
1: A species of Utricularia, with yellow flowers (U. stellaris), is a common water-plant in the still lakes near the fort of Colombo, where an opportunity is afforded of observing the extraordinary provision of nature for its reproduction. There are small appendages attached to the roots, which become distended with air, and thus carry the plant aloft to the surface, during the cool season. Here it floats till the operation of flowering is over, when the vesicles burst, and by its own weight it returns to the bottom of the lake to ripen its seeds and deposit them in the soil; after which the air vessels again fill, and again it re-ascends to undergo the same process of fecundation.