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Nelumbo
Also called Lotuses
Nelumbo is a genus of aquatic plants with large, showy flowers, of which two living species are known: the sacred lotus (N. nucifera) and the American lotus (N. lutea). Commonly grown members are aquatic plants that need a pond or tub with still, sunny water.
Nelumbo is a genus of aquatic plants with large, showy flowers. Members are commonly called lotus, though the name is also applied to various other plants and plant groups, including the unrelated genus Lotus. Members outwardly resemble those in the family Nymphaeaceae ("water lilies"), but Nelumbo is actually very distant from that family.
Nelumbo is an ancient genus, with dozens of species known from fossil remains since the Early Cretaceous. However, there are only two known living species of lotus. One is the better-known Nelumbo nucifera, which is native to East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and probably Australia and is commonly cultivated for consumption and use in traditional Chinese medicine. The other lotus is Nelumbo lutea, which is native to North America and the Caribbean. Horticultural hybrids have been produced between these two allopatric species.
The entire plant can be eaten either raw or cooked. The underwater portion is high in starch. The fleshy parts can be dug from the mud and baked or boiled. The young leaves can be boiled. The seeds are palatable and can be eaten raw or dried and ground into flour. The stem fibers are also used to make lotus silk.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Nelumbo by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
