Ancient Asian Lotus Flowers Get a Start in Southeast US

Jean Harrington doesn't have a whole lot of time to read these days. The owner of Antioch Nursery in Troy, Alabama, has thousands of plants to nurture and just as many satisfied customers. Harrington does read, particularly home and garden articles. She's on the lookout for any new horticultural development that will enable her to offer even more in her nursery.

So, when she saw an article in Alabama Living magazine last year about experimentation with lotus flowers - the first of its kind in the United States - her botanical antennas perked up. She read how the early-flowering lotuses would be sold at garden centers in "select regions of the country." Up until that point, garden enthusiasts could only purchase the dormant lotus tubers, and here was an opportunity for nurseries to offer the flowering lotus plant to customers. Harrington called the writer and asked how she could get some of the perennial plants to offer her customer base. "I told her, I am a garden center."

The reporter put Harrington in touch with Ken Tilt, horticulture professor at Auburn University who was overseeing the lotus research and outreach project last March. It wasn't long before Harrington received a shipment containing nine varieties of the lotus tubers, wrapped in plastic bags, with instructions on how to nurture them into infant flowering beauties that she could then sell.

The trouble was Harrington was never meant to be a part of the experiment. Horticultural researchers at Auburn had contracted with one of their alumnus to experiment with the tubers, who'd placed them in greenhouses he'd created to simulate summer days in order to seduce the plants into flowering early. Only 4,500 of the early-flowering lotus plants were offered last March, and they were all shipped to garden centers in the northern part of the country.

The lotus project at Auburn was a trial run that started in 2001. Scientists from Auburn, Georgia, Mississippi and China sought to make lotus plantings a double cropping opportunity for fish farmers in Black Belt counties in Alabama. To flower, the tubers need the environmental conditions that fishponds already have. Double cropping lotus among fisheries would bring an increase in revenue, diversification, production, and economic sustainability.

Again, Harrington's nursery is not a part of the Black Belt, nor is there a fishpond on site. But because she had the nerve to ask for something she wasn't meant to have, she was given what she asked for. This lady who stands a little over four feet tall, gives a slight smile and says, "That's how I got in the lotus business. I didn't mean to get into the lotus business."

Since last April, she has been harvesting the lotus tubers in big barrels. As lotus pods and leaves appear, she separates them and relocates them to a pot ready to sell. "You have to handle the tubers carefully," Harrington said as she pointed out two varieties - red-edged white, and Chongshui Hua - that are ready for customers to take home. "Once you break it in any way, it will not grow."

Likely Page BreakLotus plants, also known as nelumbo nucifera, are the national flower of India and Vietnam. Lotuses are aquatic perennials that date back to ancient Egypt. Every part of the lotus can be eaten - the flower, seeds, young leaves and roots (called rhizomes). Rhizomes are used in soups and salads. The roots are served stir fried, deep fried, braised and pickled. Lotus roots are high in dietary fiber, vitamin C, potassium, thiamin, riboflavin, vitamin B6, phosphate, copper, manganese, and they are low in saturated fat. The lotus has medicinal uses as well. Some call it "God's favorite flower."

Harrington feels good about being able to offer God's favorite flower to her customers. While scientists at Auburn are gauging America's acceptance of the plant as a food item, garden addition and a possible source for energy production, Harrington continues to make pots of the flowering lotus for sale to customers who can enjoy the plant anyway they wish.