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MAREOTIS (Arabic Mariut)
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MAREOTIS (Arabic Mariut), the most westerly of the lakes in the Delta of Egypt. On the narrow strip of land separating the lake from the Mediterranean the city of Alexandria is built. (See EGYPT; and ALEXANDRIA.) MARE'S-TAIL, in botany, the popular name for an aquatic herb known botanically as Hippuris vulgaris (natural order Haloragaceae). It grows on margins of lakes, ponds and similar localities, and has a submerged stout creeping rootstock from which spring many-jointed cylindrical stems bearing numerous narrow leaves close-set in whorls. The minute greenish flowers are borne in the leaf-axils. Like many fresh-water plants it has a wide distribution, occurring in arctic and temperate regions in the northern hemisphere and reappearing in antarctic South America.