The following blog was written by Rebecca Camfield a digitiser in the Herbarium.
Since 2021 we have increased our digitisation capacity reaching 1 million specimens imaged in August 2024. Each digitiser is assigned a family of plants to work through. This series of blogs will spotlight the families that have been completed by a member of the team.
This aquatic family has a single extant genus, Nelumbo. There are however 5 other extinct genera known from fossil records. Nelumbo is commonly known as the Lotus.
There are only two living species: Nelumbo lutea and Nelumbo nucifera. Yet there is a fossil record spanning back to the Cretaceous of 30 species.
Nelumbo nucifera Gaertn. is the sacred lotus of Asia (Ukraine down through the Transcaucasia, Iran and into all of Indo-China, up the Amur river to parts of Russia, Japan and down to Australia) with its pink flowers represented in many forms of art and religion. It is sacred in both Hinduism and Buddhism and the national flower of India and Vietnam. It has been cultivated for a very long time as both seeds and rhizome are edible along with ornamental uses has resulted in different cultivars focussing on a particular aspect. Due to its beauty it has been used in gardens throughout the world and is now considered introduced to the Southern United States, the Carribean, Italy and Gabon.
Nelumbo lutea (Willd.) Pers. is the American Lotus found in Central to Eastern United States, Mexico, the Carribean and Colombia. This yellow flowering species is also eaten and owes some of its spread in the states to the Native Americans carrying its seeds as a food source. It is also known as Alligator corn.
They are sometimes called waterlilies but are not related to the Nympheaceae and can be easily spotted by their peltate leaves and unique seed pod. The two families are an example of convergent evolution. In fact, the closest families to Nelumboaceae are Proteaceae and Platanaceae, both of which contain trees and shrubs.
Our Collections
We have 74 specimens of Nelumbo in our collections. The specimens can be viewed here.
Filing Regions
| No. of Specimens | Herbarium Filing Region |
| 21 | India,Pakistan & Bangladesh |
| 15 | North America |
| 13 | Inner China, Korea and Taiwan |
| 5 | Bhutan & Sikkim |
| 4 | Cultivated |
It isn’t surprising to see India, North America and China at the top of the list but very odd to see nothing from Indo-China.
Nelumbo nucifera Gaertn. has quite a range that is not represented in our collections, we have none from Indo-China, Amur in Russia, Java, Papua New Guinea and Australia. Although we have some from Western Asiaall 3 specimens are from Azerbaijan. We also have no specimens of Nelumbo lutea from Mexico and Colombia.
