Pomarium Britannicum: an historical and botanical account of fruits, known in Great Britain / [Henry Phillips].

  • Henry Phillips
Date:
1820
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pomarium Britannicum: an historical and botanical account of fruits, known in Great Britain / [Henry Phillips]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    56*0 From Ovid's elegant fable of Dryope, we learn from whence this tree is supposed to have derived its name. Not distant far a wat’r}' lotus grows ; The spring was new, and ail the verdant boughs, Adorn’d with blossoms, promis’d fruits that vie, In glowing colours with the T}rian dye. Upon the tree I cast a frightful look. The trembling tree with sudden horror shook. Lotis the nymph (if rural tales be true,) As from Pi iapus’ lawless lust she flew. Forsook her form ; and fixing, there became A flow’ry plant, which still preserves her name. Theophrastus mentions the lotus fruit in his 4th book, where he says, that it is of the size of a bean, and changes its colour as it ripens. This author affirms, that the tree is by it's nature everlasting. Strabo in his 17th book informs us, that Syrtis as well as Menynx was said to be Lotophagitis. The compass of the gulpli, says this geographer, where the lotus grows, is almost ]600 furlon2:s; the breadth of the mouth 600: by the capes there are islands near to the main land. It is thought, con¬ tinues he, that Menynx was the country of the Lotophagi, or those that feed on the lotus-trees, of which country Homer makes mention ; and there are certain monuments