arch. Also 7 loat-. [LOTE sb.1] a. The Nettle-tree, Celtis australis. b. The jujube-tree, Zisyphus Lotus, identified with the tree that bore the mythical lotus-fruit. c. The date-plum, Diospyros Lotus (Treas. Bot., 1866). d. Identified with the lotus-lily (LOTUS 4), erroneously supposed to be a tree.
1548. Turner, Names of Herbes, 24. Celtis … it hath a leafe lyke a Nettel, therfore it may be called in englishe Nettel tree or Lote tree.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 494. At Rome … there is yet to be seene a Lote tree standing before the said chappell.
1611. Cotgr., Micocoulier d’Afrique. Th’ African Lote, or Nettle, tree; of whose blacke wood excellent Flutes are made.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 583. The Lasting of Plants is most in those that are Largest of Body; as Oakes, Elme, Ches-nut, the Loat-Tree, &c.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. iv. § 18. 336. As the Egyptian Hieroglyphick for Material and Corporeal things, was Mud or floating Water, so they pictur’d God, in Loto arbore sedentem super Lutum, sitting upon the Lote-tree above the Watery Mud.
1741. Compl. Fam.-Piece, II. iii. 374. Lote or Nettle-tree.
1825. Greenhouse Comp., II. 82. Z[izyphus] Lotus, a small tree from Barbary, supposed by some to be the Lote-tree of Pliny.
1855. Planché, Fairy T. C’tess d’Aulnoy (1858), 359. A part of the river-side, shaded by willows and lote-trees [Fr. alisiers].
1884. J. Payne, 1001 Nts., VIII. 70. The lote-tree doth itself array In some fresh beauty every day.
1887. Browning, Parleyings, G. de Lairesse, v. Could I gaze intent On Dryope plucking the blossoms red … Whereat her lote-tree writhed and bled.
attrib. 1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 627. The Loote-tree-root [tr. L. loti radix].
1833. Tennyson, Œnone, Poems 56. The smoothswarded bower … with lotetree-fruit thickset.
1884. J. Payne, Tales fr. Arabic, II. 31, note. Lote-tree leaves dried and powdered … are strewn over the dead body.
