Sacred Lotus
Nelumbo nucifera · Garden flowers
Sacred lotus
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 31 August 2025
White shading to pink at each petal tip, a flat yellow disc studded with the flower's developing seed pod already visible at the centre.
Lotus seeds are famous for outlasting almost anything else in the plant kingdom, with viable examples recovered from old lake beds in China well over a thousand years old. The flower also warms itself, holding its centre at around 30 degrees on a cold morning, for the benefit of the beetles that pollinate it.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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