What looked like a wild, cream-colored water lily in abundant bloom was seen last fall in the backwaters of certain slow-flowing Kansas streams.
It was striking in appearance and worth going miles to see.
Nelumbo Luteum
You could gather an armful of the big flowers without getting your feet wet, and they made a showy indoor display with their long-stemmed blossoms and great, round leaves.
When the petals finally fell, the seed receptacles, which had turned brown and grown large, were striking in themselves.
This exciting native was the yellow lotus, Nelumbo luteum.
Under ideal wild conditions, it produces blossoms as large as a dinner plate and would seem more at home in the tropics than in temperate America.
Nelumbo Family
Questions about it came to my mind. Is it a water lily? Can it be cultivated?
Thanks to a botanical library, I was able to find the answers. It is not a water lily but is native to this country and can easily be cultivated.
Instead of being a lily, it belongs to the smaller and more exclusive lotus family, Nelumbo.
History of Yellow Lotus
The yellow lotus (lutea) has only one relative, nucifera, a native of Asia. Strange that only two family members should be so widely separated geographically.
If no white man had seen a yellow lotus before the discovery of America, Indians for over four centuries had known it well.
Some of the Eastern tribes cultivated it in the waters of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, and it was abundant on the tributaries of the Mississippi.
The seeds are starchy and tough to crack, but squaws learned how to soak them to remove the kernels served with meat or mixed with soup.
The tubers are also edible and eaten fresh, sliced, and dried.
Cultivation of Nelumbo
The cultivation of Nelumbo luteum is simple if three points are kept in mind:
- First, the tubers should not be transplanted until growth has begun.
- Second, they are heavy feeders, so if grown in an artificial pond, they require a mixture of two parts turfy loam to one part rotted cow manure.
- Third, they should be planted below the frost line. Otherwise, they will die. Oh yes—muskrats love them.
Sacred Hindu Lotus
Concerning the Asiatic relative, nucifera, the word “nelumbo” comes from Ceylon, and Nelumbo nucifera is known as the sacred Hindu lotus.
It has been found growing near temples, and its likeness is carved on the walls of cave temples in China, Japan, and India.
The blossoms are fragrant and vary in color from pink to rose. The tubers are used for food in Japan, much as our American Indians used them.
Egyptian Lotus
It is believed the Romans brought the Hindu lotus to Egypt, where it was cultivated along the Nile, probably for food. But Nelumbo was not native to Egypt, nor is it now in a wild state.
Egyptian lotus is a botanically incorrect term, having been misapplied in common use to the water lily, Nymphaea caerulea.
In architecture, there is a column with what is known as the Egyptian Lotus flower on its capital.
The blossom which inspired this capital was mistakenly called lotus and is a water lily, but not relative to our Nelumbo.
Though botanists agree the plant inscribed on tombs and monuments is not a lotus, they are also convinced the use of the word after all these centuries is “so deeply rooted that it probably will never be changed.”
Even though the “Egyptian Lotus” is a water lily and the American “wild yellow water lily” is a lotus, it is a comfort to know that we can claim such a fine aquatic plant as the yellow lotus as our own.
44659 by Lorene O. Pinney