Do you know everything about lotus flowers?

The lotus (Nelumbo nucifera), also known as the lotus flower, water lily, hendersonia, and fuyu, belongs to the Nelumbonaceae family and the Nelumbo genus. It is a type of emergent aquatic plant among many.

Lotus flowers have always been beloved by people, renowned worldwide as a famous flower, and one of China's national flowers. They are both ornamental and edible, and can also be used in medicine, with every part being valuable.

Lotus is one of the ancient dicotyledonous plants, yet its stems, roots, leaf veins, seeds, and other parts exhibit certain characteristics of monocotyledonous plants. To adapt to an aquatic lifestyle, the underground stems, petioles, and flower stalks of lotus plants are equipped with well-developed aerenchyma.

4. The rhizome, horizontally growing underground from the lotus, serves as an organ for storing nutrients and reproduction, characterized by distinct nodes and internodes, with adventitious roots on the nodes. It can be used as propagation material and is also edible. The enlargement of the rhizome is related to the ecological type, while the degree, shape, and size of the enlargement vary among different varieties.

Lotus leaves are composed of the petiole and leaf blade, serving as an essential nutritional organ responsible for photosynthesis. The lotus flower features two types of leaves, namely floating leaves and upright leaves. The veins on the leaf's back are raised, with one extending straight to the leaf tip, while the others branch in a dichotomous pattern, providing support and conduction. The central intersection of the veins is the leaf sinus, also known as the "leaf nose."

The lotus flower consists of six parts: sepals, petals, stamens, pistils, receptacle, and peduncle, and is solitary and bisexual.

7. The buds come in colors such as red, red-green, and green, and their shapes vary from elongated oval-conical, oval-conical, oval-spherical, to spherical. They usually emerge after the upright leaves have grown, but there are also varieties where the upright leaves grow only after the buds have emerged.

The lotus flowers come in a rich variety of colors, including white, pink, yellow, red, bicolor, and洒锦. Depending on the number of petals and the development of the pistils and stamens, they are categorized into five types: single-petaled, semi-double-petaled, double-petaled, heavily double-petaled, and thousand-petaled.

9. The flower shapes are predominantly cup-shaped, bowl-shaped, fluttering, plate-shaped, ball-like, or nearly unexpanded.

The stamens of the lotus are arranged in a ring at the base of the receptacle, consisting of three parts: filaments, anthers, and appendages. The appendages also display a rich array of colors, including white, red, white with red, and orange-red.

Some lotus varieties produce stamens that undergo petalization, thereby increasing the number of petals. The lotus receptacle is located at the center of the flower, connected to the peduncle. After fertilization, the receptacle gradually grows with the development of the fruit, known as the "lotus spike," which contains lotus seeds.

In the early fruiting stage of lotus seeds, the fruit skin is green and leathery; upon maturation, it turns dark brown with a glossy or matte surface. Once the fruit skin is removed, the seeds are revealed. Depending on the variety, the fruits can be ellipsoid, ovate, spherical, and vary in size.

The vitality of mature lotus seeds is astonishing; even after being buried underground for thousands of years, they can germinate, grow, bloom, and bear fruit.