Nature Bulletin No. 196-A   June 12, 1965
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
Seymour Simon, President
Roland F. Eisenbeis, Supt. of Conservation

****:THE LOTUS AND THE WATER LILIES

In midsummer, when the weather is hot and sultry, Mother Nature 
puts on an extravagant flower show. She uses just one kind of blossom. 
Completely covering hundreds of acres of water in shallow lakes or 
sluggish streams, are dense almost impenetrable beds of plants with 
huge green leaves like elephant ears and stately creamy-yellow flowers 
as fragrant as they are beautiful. This is the American Lotus, closely 
akin to the Egyptian lotus and the sacred lotus of the Hindus.

The American lotus grows in quiet water from 2 to 5 feet deep, where 
its big leaves and flowers usually stand a foot or two above the surface 
on thick stiff stems rising from fleshy rootstalks buried in the mud. It 
has several leathery dark green leaves, almost circular and from one to 
two or more feet in diameter, each balanced at its center, like a platter, 
on the stem. The great flower buds open into blossoms, from 6 to 10 
inches across, with broad petals and sepals. These are followed by 
conical seed capsules, often the size of a man's fist. From one to two 
dozen seeds are set in pits in the fist top of the capsule, which breaks 
off and floats about, scattering the seeds.

These seeds, about the size of a white oak acorn, have a very hard 
shell. The Indians roasted them and ate them like peanuts, or ground 
them into meal to make bread, mush or dumplings. They are starchy, 
rich in oil, and have a flavor much like chestnuts. A few of the 
descendants of pioneer families in the Illinois valley still make enough 
flour from lotus seeds to bake a holiday cake once a year. The 
rootstock, which has somewhat the flavor of a sweet potato when 
boiled, was also eaten by the Indians. This lotus is found from 
Massachusetts to Minnesota and south to Florida and Texas, but it is 
thought that the Indians carried it across the Allegheny mountains to 
the east coast for its food value. In the Chicago region it is best known 
at Grass Lake, one of the Chain O'Lakes in northeastern Illinois, and a 
number of the bottomland lakes and backwaters along the Illinois 
River where it is called the Yackey Nut or Water Chinquapin.

In the north central states there are a few other native water lilies, near 
relatives of the lotus, that also grow in ponds, lake margins and slow-
moving streams. Two species with large floating leaves and large 
floating white flowers are often seen in this region but never in beds so 
extensive as those of the lotus. One is the Sweet-scented Water Lily, 
wonderfully fragrant. The other is the odorless White Water Lily or 
Water Nymph. The first has round waxy green leaves, pinkish 
underneath and sometimes 12 inches in diameter, with a cleft on one 
side that extends into the stem attachment at the center. Its flowers, 3 
to 6 inches broad and pure white or tinged with pink, have a center of 
many yellow stamens. The water nymph is similar but its flowers and 
leaves are larger. Both kinds have long limber rubbery stems and long 
rootstocks in the mud.

The Yellow Pond Lily, Cow Lily or Spatterdock, is common east of the 
Rockies. Its leaves, with a deep wide notch at the base, are sometimes 
held above water by the thick stems. It blooms all summer, bearing 
yellow or greenish-yellow cup-like flowers of which the conspicuous 
parts are the sepals. Its petals are reduced to little fleshy knobs.

The famous Royal Water Lily, native in the Amazon River of Brazil, 
has creamy-white flowers that turn pink or red, and gigantic floating 
flat leaves with upturned edges. These leaves, sometimes 6 feet in 
diameter, can support the weight of a 150-pound person.

The water lily, says an Indian legend, originated from a falling star.