Lotus?

[kradeij]

Was over at my friend's place in Johor over the weekend and he planted these in his place.







I thought the flowers are lotus but when I show my mom the pictures she said that its a kind of flower called he hua(chinese). Anyone can help identify the flowers?

[Justikanz]

Err...

Lotus = Lian Hua

He Hua = Water Lilly

And guess what? Your mum's right... This is a water lilly... The leaves are floating on the water... Lotus' leaves will protrude from the water surface the same way as the flowers do...

[hwchoy]

I think we cannot relate the common chinese names to the scientific classification. basically waterlilies (what you have) are from the genus Nymphaea while lotus are members of Nelumbo.

the chinese common names are confusing and I'm not sure if they are aligned with taxonomic classes. for example, the leaves we use for wrapping chicken and the lotus roots we make soup from, are both parts the lotus plant, yet in mandarin their names are 荷叶 and 莲藕. even the seeds of the lotus is called 莲子 yet waterlilies are called 睡莲.

[hwchoy]

I thought the flowers are lotus but when I show my mom the pictures she said that its a kind of flower called he hua(chinese). Anyone can help identify the flowers?

just remember your plants are all Nymphaea spp.

[kradeij]

Got it! Thanks!

Anyway I can understand why they call it 睡莲, cause the flowers only bloom from noon to around 5 plus pm. But they do look spectacular!