From phma@oltronics.net Sat Nov 10 20:12:51 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: phma@ixazon.dynip.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 11 Nov 2001 04:12:42 -0000 Received: (qmail 20564 invoked from network); 11 Nov 2001 04:12:42 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.167) by m11.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 11 Nov 2001 04:12:42 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO neofelis.ixazon.lan) (216.189.29.239) by mta1.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 11 Nov 2001 04:12:30 -0000 Received: by neofelis.ixazon.lan (Postfix, from userid 500) id A6DCF3C509; Sat, 10 Nov 2001 23:08:38 -0500 (EST) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Reply-To: phma@oltronics.net To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] RE: Loti Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 23:08:37 -0500 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.2] References: <93.1301b53a.291dab8a@aol.com> In-Reply-To: <93.1301b53a.291dab8a@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <0111102308370F.01185@neofelis> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: phma@ixazon.dynip.com From: Pierre Abbat On Friday 09 November 2001 16:58, pycyn@aol.com wrote: > This plant being some member of genus Lotus, I supppose. > as near as I can figure out, it is the first plant to be called "lootos" in > Greek: "a kind of clover or trefoil, on which horses fed" (and some > poisoned thereby, when a cyanogene got to strong). In short, the whole > confusion bar one goes back to Greek: Ziziphus lotus, the Cyrenian jujube, > is presumably what the Lotophagoi et -- almst as good as a date but a bit > purgative. It may also (being related to blackthorns, as far as I can > figure these things out) be the shrub from which flutes could be made, when > the lotos=aulos bit in poetry. And then there is the Nile lotus, Nymphaea > spp. No clue about what the Greeks saw in common here. The extension to > Nelumbo nucifera from the last mentioned is a snap and is presumably what > {latna} is all about. All of these except Nelumbo are in the phytiatrics > for one reason or another (though Lotus is not a very reliable poison, or > Ziziphus a purgative). One of the active ingredients of Nympaea juice is > nuciferine, so the omission of Nelumbo seems an oversight on the compiler's > part, though it is not clear what it is useful for. Okay. So do Lotus spp. and Ziziphus (I've also seen it spelled Zizyphus) lotus deserve to be called latna? phma