How to tell lotus and water lily apart? An old gardener teaches you plant care tips
The lotus is also known as lianhua, so does that mean lianhua is the lotus? The water lily can also be called lianhua, so what about the lotus? Feeling a bit confused? The old gardener from Warm Little Home will teach everyone exactly how to tell lotus and water lily apart.
To be precise, the lotus belongs to the order Nymphaeales and is a perennial aquatic herbaceous plant. But unlike the water lily, it has strong, thick underground rhizomes, which are the familiar lotus roots. The lotus flowers and leaves rise tall above the water surface, reaching up to 1 m at most, standing elegantly upright. The lotus flowering season is basically from June to September each year, with flowers borne at the tip of the peduncle, and the blooms are huge and beautifully clear. The lotus is mainly divided into two types, ornamental and edible, and the latter's roots and seeds are both edible.
Every part of the lotus is a treasure; its seeds, lotus root nodes, leaves, rhizomes, root nodes, flowers and seeds can all be used as medicine. And this plant, recorded as being cultivated since China's Zhou Dynasty, has been praised by people since ancient times for its noble character of emerging unstained from the mud. Writers and painters throughout China's dynasties also often took the lotus as their subject for creation; the lotus is one of China's top ten famous flowers, with very high ornamental and practical value.
The water lily resembles the lotus somewhat in appearance and is also a perennial aquatic herbaceous plant. It likewise has oval leaves that drift on the water all year round. There are many varieties of water lily, and its petals are usually eight in number; the flower shape is likewise very beautiful, generally opening during the day under natural light and closing at night. The water lily's flowers and leaves mostly float close to the water surface, rising only slightly above it, and the leaves have an obvious V-shaped notch.
The water lily, which belongs to the same genus Nymphaea, has far fewer uses compared with the lotus. Apart from its rhizome being usable as medicine, only its flowers can be used to make tea or perfume, with a light, elegant and fragrant scent. Through the ages no one has used the water lily to describe noble character, and its nature of having no strong root system for support and drifting with the current has instead made duckweed a derogatory term for frivolous and shallow people, forming a sharp contrast with the noble and pure image of the lotus.
In addition, there is another very intuitive difference between the lotus and the water lily: the lotus flower's color is usually a pale pink, while the water lily comes in many colors such as white, blue, yellow and red. After reading this introduction, I believe you can now tell the difference between the lotus and the water lily very easily.