Yellow Lotus of Rondeau Bay

 

Rondeau Bay holds some interesting and beautiful surprises. Over the
past few years in my kayak, I've visited an expanding grove among the
west shore of the bay. In these warm, still evenings of July and
August, paddling northeast from Shrewsbury, one can find along the
shoreline, over an acre of yellow lotus (nelumbo lutea).

Southwestern Ontario is the extreme northern limit of its range.
Yellow Lotus can also be found at Cedar Beach, Walpole Island and the
grassy inlets of Lake St. Clair. It grows in still, warm shallow water
(up to 8 feet) from a muddy bottom.

Once established, the lotus spreads an extensive system of underground
stems, which produce large edible tubers. An important food source,
the yellow lotus was cultured and spread by first nations peoples
across Eastern North America centuries ago.

The flower lasts only 2 days and closes every night. After the petals
drop off, the conical seedpod continues to grow and eventually reaches
a diameter of about 3 inches. In its flat top are about 20 holes, each
containing a seed the size of a small pea.

By autumn the conical seed pods will have dried and fallen into the
water where they'll float, pointy end up, and eventually release the
hard, brown edible seeds. To germinate, the seeds hard exterior must
either be scraped (scarified), which happens due to wave action along
the Lake Erie shoreline at Cedar Beach or will spontaneously occur
after a dormancy of decades or even hundreds of years.

The large round leaves (between 12 and 18 inches) resemble lily pads
although some are held aloft, above the water by a rigid stalk. A
remarkable property of the upper surface of the leaves is that they
repel water so that water beads and rolls. Often within individual
drops, can be seen tiny swimming crustaceans, made plainly visible by
the lens-like shape of the drop.

Much of the lotus’ habitat has been threatened by siltation and other
water pollution, by dredging, hardening, and other shoreline
alterations and motor boat traffic through the groves. In Rondeau Bay
this grove is in a location relatively protected from wind and wave
action..

In Buddhist traditions, the lotus symbolizes purification of the mind,
of speech and the body and the open blossom signifies enlightenment.