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Sacred Holy Lotus Nelumbo Nucifera Seeds
Packet of 10+ seeds!
I am sure you have all seen this fella before, it’s the traditional lotus used extensively as a food and ornamental pond plant all around the world.
It has huge blooms which form large pods, and when the pods ripen and dry the pods tilt to drop the seeds. These lot are normally pink or white, but as they are widely grow and openly pollinated I have no real idea of the flower colour until they bloom. There are wild populations of these guys all over the place so cross pollination is very possible.
I have a step by step “How to grow lotus seeds” here.
They are really easy to grow and a great choice for kids. All you do is carefully use a steak knife, or even easier file or just rub one small patch of the seed on the concrete until you have punctured the outer shell. Couple millimeters, slight discolouring is all you need.
Then you put it in clean clear water, just a normal bucket works great.
The shoots should be popping within about 1-2weeks and once they have sent out and uncurled their first two leaves they are ready to be transplanted it a pond, water feature, even a large fishtank. We just use buckets, plastic drums, IBC tanks with the tops cut off, and of course the dam.
Be warned that lots of things eat them, everything from snails to cattle, so take that into account when you plant them out.
The whole plant is edible, the seeds being boiled and dried or roasted and peeled then used as an adition to TCM teas and soups.
The roots and harvested on a massive scale, they are then peeled, sliced and dried for use as a vegetable.
The flowers are used as a mild sedative tea the same way as with Nymphaea Species.
Called a few differnet things over the years, once known as Nelumbium speciosum, Nymphaea nelumbo, Nymphaea stellata, and know regionally as Indian lotus, sacred lotus, bean of India, or simply lotus.
It is an Aussie native used as a food for millenia, and it is also found in most of Asia, being the national flower of both Vietnam and India.
The seeds store very well, remaining viable for centuries. In Northeastern China seeds found in a dried up lake still germinated after 1300+ years!
There is documentation of cultivation in China going back to the early 12th century and it has a huge list of traditional uses including to treat sunstroke, fever, diarrhoea, dysentery, dizziness, vomiting of blood, hemorrhoids.
The seeds are used for symptomatic relief of fever, cholera, nervous disorders, insomnia, to stop vomiting, relieve indigestion, diarrhea and as a general tonic or cure all.
The flower has been used as a treatment for syphilis, and as a blood clotting agent due to the high level of alkaloids that stop bleeding.
Totally works, cut my foot real deep on a freshwater mussle shell once, stopped it bleeding straight away and no infection which was a real surprise. The mud I was flapping around in at the time was hardly “clean”…
It also contains nuciferine, aporphine and armepavine.
You can buy the sliced dried seeds and dried fresh or frozen roots in every Asian supermarket in the country, and it is an incredibly popular product.
But why bother doing that, when you can just grow your own?
Grown by me and the Mrs organically(wildharvested too), no chemicals, no nasties, no problems!!!
