Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/364

 334 Theophrastus writes as of his own knowledge; he continues as follows: "It is reported that in the Euphrates the head and flowers keep sinking till midnight, when they are so deep in the water as to be out of reach of the hand, but towards morning they return, and still more as the day advances. At sun-rise they are already above the surface, with the flower expanded; afterwards they rise high above the water." Pliny repeats the same account, and Prosper Alpinus, whose purpose is to prove the Lotus of Theophrastus not different from the common Nymphæa, in which, as far as genus is concerned, he is correct, has the following remarkable passage: "The celebrated stories of the Lotus turning to the sun, closing its flowers and sinking under water at night, and rising again in the morning, are conformable to what every body has observed in the Nymphæa."

I have been the more particular in the above quotations, because the veracity of Theophrastus has lately been somewhat rudely impeached, on very questionable authority. For my own part, I think what we see of the Nymphæa in England is sufficient to render