… a great difference of opinion has prevailed among the moderns concerning what the ancients intended by the lotus: for the history of it, as it has come down to us, is mixed with fable, from having previously passed through the hands of the poets.
The name ‘lotus’ was applied by the ancients indifferently to a number of quite different families of plants, notably (1) the true lotus … (2) the shrub or tree Zizyphus, Jujuba, whose berries were eaten by tribes in North Africa (3) trefoils, clovers, and melilots. … The lotus which men really ate was what I have called the true lotus, of which there are two varieties to be considered: (1) Nelumbo, the Indian lotus, and (2) Nymphaea, the Egyptian lotus, both of the family Nymphaeaceae.