54. Nymphaea lotus, Linn.

The medicinal plant Nymphaea lotus is a member of the Nymphaeaceae (water lilies) family. This page includes its habitat, botanical descption, medicinal uses (eg., Ayurveda), chemical constituents and history of use in modern and ancient India.

Index in Flora of British India (Hooker): i. 114.

Synonyms:—Nymphaea rubra, Roxb. Nymphaea edulis, DC.

Habitat:—Common throughout the warmer parts of India, abundant in Bombay, Thana district, Ceylon streams, tanks, ponds, up to 1,000 ft.

Sanskrit:—Raktotpala (Red lotus), Kokonada (Lotus), Hallaka (Red lotus), Raktasandhika (Red joints), Nilotpala (Blue lotus), Kunalaya (Lotus), Bhadra (Auspicious), Indivara (Good lotus).

Vernacular:—Kanval; Chota Kanval (H.); Shaluk; Saluk; nal; Koi (parched seeds); rakta kamal (red variety); Chota sundi (B.); Dhaala-Lain; rangkain (Orissa); Kuni; puni; lorhi (root); napo (seeds) (Sind); Alli-phul (Dec.); Kanval; Kanval; nilophal (Guz.); Lala Kamal. Rakta Kamal (Marathi); Alli-tamarai, Ambal (Tam.); Alli-tamara; tella-kaluva; koteka; Erra-kaluva (red var.); Kalha-ramu (Tel.); Nyadale-huvu (Kan.); Ampala (Malay); Otu-Et-Olu (Sinhalese)—.

Parts used:—The flowers, root and seeds.

Note: Trimen observes thus:—The colour of the flowers varies from pale pink or nearly white to a deep rich rose-colour. Their size is also very variable; but these differences are not united with any structural ones of sufficient importance to distinguish separate species,

Botanical description:—An aquatic creeping herb.

Rootstock: short, erect, roundish, tuberous.

Leaves: on very long, erect, cylindrical, submerged petioles.

Blade: horizontal, floating, peltate 6-8 in. diam., sagittate-rotundate, very obtuse, with a narrow or wide sinus 3 in. deep at base, coarsely and sharply sinuate-dentate, smooth above, more or less densely and finely velvet-tomentose beneath, with veins very prominent. 

Flowers: solitary, very large, 5-7 in diam., on very long, usually pubescent, peduncles.

Sepals: oblong, obtuse, ribbed, glabrous or pilose externally, 

Petals: about 12, oblong or oval-oblong, obtuse, spreading. 

Stamens: about 40, anthers without iippendages, filaments dilated at base. 

Rays of stigma: terminating in fleshy, club-shaped, incurved appendages. 

Fruit: 1¼ in. diam., globular, fleshy, green, crowned with erect connivent, stiff, persistent sepals. 

Cells: about 15, closely crowded with seeds.

Seeds: ovoid-globular, ribbed with vertical lines of little tubercles, and very minutely transversely striate; aril white, transparent. Seeds edible.

The flowers are sweet-scented. They sink under water to mature and ripen.

Medicinal uses:—The rootstock of this plant, says my old friend, Pandit Jaya Krishna Indraji, at page 16 of his Vanaspati-Varnana (Gujrati), is used on fast days by Hindus as a nourishing article of food, after boiling and mixing it with milk and sugar. The powdered rootstock is also given in dyspepsia, diarrhoea and piles. A decoction of flowers is also given in palpitation of heart, it is not stated in what quantity or of what strength.