Lotuses at Kenilworth Gardens

The lotuses at Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens are in bloom in June and July each year. We’ve visited three times so far this year…and the lotuses were the most numerous and largest flowers of the place. They grow in shallow ponds and range in color from white to darker pink. The leaves are lived out of the water on stalks; the leaves are large and round with veins that radiate from the center.

The stalks that end in buds, flowers, or seed pods rise above the leave layer. The ponds contain many stages of lotus development during this season. Eventually – only the pods will remain.

I’ve organized some pictures to show the development toward seed pods….starting with buds and newly opened flowers. Dragon flies often alight on the tips of the buds – a good perch for them because of the small diameter and relative stability of the stalk in the breeze compared to the stalks with full flowers.

Then the flower is fully open and insects are frequent visitors. As long as the central portion is yellow – the flower has not yet been pollinated.

The flowers follow the sun. These are my favorite images of the flowers…when they glow with the sunlight through their petals.

Eventually the flower has been pollinated and the center part turns green and the rest of the flower begins to fall apart. This flower grew up into the lowest branches of a bald cypress.

The petals fall off and the seed pod is all that remains. The pods start to mature. They dry out as the seeds mature but none of them are at that stage yet this year. The petals last a little longer if they fall onto leaves rather than into the water but they decay very rapidly even on the leaves.

Most of the time the leaves are above the water forming shallow bowls that undulate in the breeze but there are exceptions. If they are on the water surface – they often have large beads of water that last much longer than dew on a summer day. They reminded me of glass pebbles used with flower arrangements or a form of abstract art.