Lotus, perennial aquatic herbaceous flower. The underground stem is long and plump, with long nodes, and the leaves are shield-orbicular. Flowering from June to September, single at the top of the pedicel, the petals are numerous, embedded in the receptacle cavity, red, pink, white, purple and other colors, or with colored text, edging. Nut oval, seeds ovate. Lotus species are many, divided into two categories of ornamental and edible. Native to tropical and temperate regions of Asia, China's long history of cultivation, as early as the Zhou Dynasty on the cultivation records, sex like warm and humid. Lotus flowers and leaves, fragrance far away, out of the mud, y loved by the people, is a very important water surface greening plants in the garden. Lotus flower all body treasure, lotus root and lotus seed can be eaten; lotus seed, rhizome, root nodules, lotus leaves, flowers and seeds of the germ, etc. can be used as medicine, can cure a variety of diseases.

Morphological features

Perennial aquatic plants. The rootstock (lotus root) is plump and knobby, born horizontally in the mud under water. Leaves are peltate-orbicular, dark green on surface, gray-green abaxially by waxy white powder, entire and undulate. Petiole terete, densely barbed. Flowers solitary at the top of the pedicel, high above the water, with single, compound, double and heavy platform and other flower types; flower color white, pink, deep red, lavender or inter-colored and other variations; most of the stamens; the pistil is free, buried in the inverted cone-shaped spongy receptacle, the surface of the receptacle with a large number of scattered honeycomb-shaped holes, after fertilization and gradually expanding known as the rosette, a nutlet (rosette) born inside each hole. Flowering period June ~ September, daily morning and evening closed. The fruit ripens from September to October. The rhizome of the lotus is planted on the silt at the bottom of a pond or river, while the lotus leaves stick out of the water. Flowers grow on stems that stick out a few centimeters above the water. The lotus typically grows to a height of 150 centimeters and extends horizontally to 3 meters. The lotus leaves can be up to 60 centimeters in diameter. The eye-catching lotus flowers can reach a maximum diameter of 20 centimeters.

Lotus, belongs to the dicotyledonous plant buttercup order water lily family lotus, it includes two species, Chinese lotus and American lotus. Chinese lotus distributed in Asia, Oceania, most of the plants are tall, oval leaves, green, cultivated varieties of flower type has a single petal, compound petal, heavy petal, heavy platform, thousands of petals, flowers red to white; American lotus distributed in North America, the plants are short, the leaves are nearly round, dark green, the flower is only seen in a single-valve type, yellow, is still in the semi-wild state. According to ancient botanists research fossils confirmed that as early as 135 million years ago, in the northern hemisphere, many of the waters of the distribution of plants in the genus Lotus. In China, found in 1973, "Hemudu culture" site, there are lotus pollen fossils, determined, 7000 years ago. This shows that, at least 7000 years ago, lotus in China has been distributed, and even has been used as food. Although some present-day sources state that the lotus originated in India, it is China that is the origin of the lotus through historical data. Lotus in China has a long history of cultivation, spreading very widely. West to the northern foothills of the Tianshan Mountains, east of the island of Taiwan, north of Heilongjiang, south of Hainan Sanya. It can be said that China is the lotus world cultivation center.

Lotus is one of the oldest dicotyledonous plants, and at the same time has some of the characteristics of monocotyledonous plants. The germ of the lotus is wrapped in scales, similar to monocotyledons. From the structure of the flower, lotus has 3 or 4 layers of perianth, outer sepal-like, inner sepal-like, most of the stamens, pistil free, pollen grains are uniglobular boat-shaped. Lotus stems have obvious segmentation phenomenon, underground stem nodes full of fibrous roots. These are the characteristics of monocotyledonous plants. The buds of the lotus are mixed buds, and the lotus buds that people see with the naked eye are the terminal buds of the root as well as the axillary buds of each node. Roots are divided into two kinds: seed roots and adventitious roots. The main root formed by the embryonic root of the seed from which the seed is sown is underdeveloped, and it is the adventitious root that plays a functional role. As for the lotus stem is known as the lotus root, it is actually the underground rhizome of the lotus, is the lotus storage nutrients and for reproduction of the organ. The flower of lotus is solitary, bisexual, and consists of six parts: calyx, corolla, androecium, gynoecium, receptacle, and flower stalk. The varieties are diverse and the flowers are rich in color.

There are three kinds of leaves: the first leaves produced by the terminal buds are small in shape with thin stalks and float on the surface of the water, which are called money leaves or lotus money; the earliest leaves that grow on the root zone are slightly larger and float on the surface of the water, which are called floating leaves; and the leaves that grow on the root zone and stick up on the surface of the water later on are called standing leaves. Whether they are money leaves, floating leaves or standing leaves, they are all relatively inwardly rolled into a ribbed shape before they come out of the water. The size, height and order of the standing leaves show a clear ascending and descending gradient according to the early and late growth. The vertical leaves that are drawn out when the new roots are formed are larger than the previous ones and have shorter spines, called "back leaves", and in front of them there appears another leaf that is small in shape, with a short stalk and a reddish dorsum, called the "termination leaf". People only need to identify the end of the leaf, you can find the direction of the new lotus root in the mud.

The flower base of lotus is embedded in the buds at the lotus root and at the back of the base of young leaves; the flower is solitary and bisexual; the sepals are 4~5, green and fall off after the flower opens; the camps are long peach-shaped, peach-shaped or rounded peach-shaped, dark violet or greyish-green; the flowers have single petals, compound petals, heavy platforms and thousands of petals, and the colors are deep red, pink, white, green and inter-colored, etc.; the flowering season is from June to September, and the period of a single flower is only 3~4 days, and the flower is mostly spreading out and closed at noon, and the thousands of petals can open for more than 10 days. Thousands of petals can open more than 10 days; the maximum diameter of the flower can reach 30 cm, the smaller less than 10 cm; stamens 60~450 or valvular, anthers of the appendages of yellow, white filaments; school head terminal, ovary superior, most of the separation of the carpels, scattered in the bowl-shaped, trumpet-shaped green receptacle. The receptacle that expands after the flowers are gone is called the rosette, on which there are 3-30 chambers, and when the development is normal, each carpel forms an ellipsoid nutlet. Sometimes the carpels "blister" or petalization, can not form a fruit. The fruit is commonly known as the lotus seed, the pericarp is greenish when it is green and boiled, and becomes dark blue when it is ripe. The surface of the pericarp has stomata and guard cells, the epidermis has a strong and dense fenestration organization, stomata under a stomatal tract, mature lotus seed pericarp stomatal tract shrinks very small, do not allow air and water to freely enter and exit, and even prevent microbes from entering. This special organization ensures the longevity of the lotus seed. It can be buried in the ground for thousands of years without damage, and can even be used for seed germination.

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