The Lotos is a flower of such importance and prominence in the subject before us, and especially in connection with the ancient worship of the East--notably of that of a _phallic_ character, that we naturally look carefully about us for the best descriptive information we can find respecting it. A writer (M. C. Cooke, M.A.) in the "Popular Science Review" for July, 1871, says:--"The history of sacred plants is always an interesting and instructive study; more so when it extends into a remote antiquity, and is associated with such great and advanced nations as those of Egypt and India. Much has been written and speculated concerning the Lotos of old authors; and great confusion has existed in many minds on account of the desire to make all allusions and descriptions to harmonise with one ideal plant--the classic Lotos. We must clearly intimate that it is impossible to combine all the fragments of history and description applied to some plant or plants, known by the name of Lotos--and met with in the pages of Herodotus, Homer, Theophrastus, and others--into one harmonising whole, and apply them to a single mythical plant. It is manifest, from the authors themselves, that more than one Lotos is spoken of, and it was never intended to convey the notion that, like immortal Jove, the Lotos was one and indivisible. Starting, then, with the conviction that the one name has been applied to more than one or two very distinct and different plants, we shall have less difficulty than were we to attempt the futile task of reconciling all remarks about the Lotos to a single plant." "In the first instance, it is perfectly clear that the Lotos of Homer, which Ulysses discovered, and which is alluded to in the ninth book of the 'Odyssey,' is quite distinct from any of the rest. It is the fruit of this tree to which interest attaches, and not to the flower as in some others--this is the arborescent Lotos.