Plant · P-361

American Lotus

Nelumbo lutea

American lotus yields three separate harvests from one plant: a rhizome that bakes sweet and mealy like sweet potato and stores for months after an autumn dig, a chestnut-flavored seed eaten raw, cooked or dried into flour, and edible leaves, young stems and seed oil. It was once a staple food crop of North American peoples and still grows wild enough to earn the name duck acorn, since geese and ducks strip the seed heads off the water. It needs standing water in full sun and cannot grow in shade, and left alone it spreads by rhizome fast enough to close over an entire pond's surface - digging the rhizome for the kitchen doubles as the only management it needs.