Lotus vs waterlily: What are the common differences?

1. Leaves:

• Lotus have hydrophobic surfaced leaves whereas waterlily is hydrophilic, that is the surface gets wet when in contact with water.

• Standing leaves are found along with floating ones in lotus whereas waterlily got floating leaves only.

• Waterlily leaves are prone to external organism damage more as it is delicate compared to the lotus.

2. Flower:

• Lotus got comparatively larger flowers and more petals as well.

• Petals are delicately attached and tend to detach in lotus.

• Waterlily flowers tend to tuck themselves at the end of each day during their blooming period, whereas lotus flowers try to stay forever once bloomed.

• Lotus flowers are always standing above the water's surface like tropical waterlilies, but at higher heights, whereas hardy waterlily flowers float on the water-surface level.

• Seedpods are differentiable. A few waterlily-tucked flowers usually after 4th day of bloom turn into a hard pod that takes a few weeks to finally blast themselves releasing thousands of tiny micro-sized seeds shed onto its container. Whereas in lotus flowers, a part in the centre which is usually yellow in colour has tiny visible black dots around 10-20 in a pod which gradually grow to become seeds.

3. Scientific Name: Nymphaeaceae - waterlily & Nelumbo - lotus

4. Growth preference/nature:

• Waterlily: Shallow water around 8 inches in depth. Lotus: Deepwater, 1.5+ feet depth usually (everything obviously depends on the variety and there can always be exceptions and mutations in nature)

• Lotus propagated using tubers (seed propagation is time-consuming and has less success rate). The tuber grows in a circular manner in the corner of the container. Whereas, the term used for waterlily is rhizomes which tend to grow downwards and are present like root knots which are used for propagation (few varieties are flower/leaf viviparous). Though seed propagation in waterlily is time-consuming, it has a very good success rate, but the problem is there is no guarantee that the propagated plant will have the features of its parent flower as it would be pollinated from another variety.

An interesting fact is Lotus is the national flower of India, whereas the waterlily is the national flower of Sri Lanka, Iran and Bangladesh.