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Historical. 7N. lottts rather than N. caerulea, but it is too much conventionalized tooffer any conclusive argument (Fig. i, 6).Since the leaves of the blue species are entire and its petals acute,whereas the white one has sharply dentate leaves and broad petalsrounded at the apex, the difference is usually evident even in very cruderepresentations (Fig. 2).We recognize the blue one easily in manifoldapplications. It occurs, according to Schweinfurth (1883 b),on all theancient monuments of Egypt. The use of its tuberous rhizome for food,is said to have been given to the people by Menes, or perhaps even byIsis (Pickering Diodorus). At convivial meetings a flower of the blue;lotus was presented to each of the guests, and in feasts for the dead, thefeasters delighted themselves with the color and odor of this lotus(Buckley). In a carving figured by Wilkinson, the guests are distinwFig. 2.Egyptian lotus (designsafter Wilkinson).Fig. 3.Pleasure boat in a pond of lotuses (afterWilkinson).guished from the hosts and servants partly by their lotuses (see page 1,underneath title).In most of these picturings the flowers are considerablyconventionalized, but Schweinfurth saw them in the temple of Ramses IIat Abydos, and on coffins of the Ptolemaic period, distinctly painted blue.One of Champollion's figures shows a lotus with green sepals, blue outerpetals and red inner petals, all of the parts being tipped with black the red;and black must have been inserted for love of variety! An interestingTheban picture shows a pleasure boat, being towed round a pond by threeslaves ;the water isrepresented by the characteristic wavy lines, and ismade more vivid by a liberal sprinkling of lotuses, both leaf and flower,over the water-surface 1 (Fig. 3).Just as the blue lotus appears in figures of social life and inrecreation, it occurs as a favorite flower in religious observances. It isfigured among offerings to the gods in the IV dynasty (Pickering ;1This lotus has also been found depicted on the pavement of the palace of Sardanapalus, buthas evidently been copied by the Assyrian artists from Egyptian sources (Bonavia, 1894).