PetalA lotus flower has many large petals. They drop a few days after the flower opens.
StamenThe pollen-making part: a thin stalk with an anther at its tip. A lotus has a great many, in a ring round the receptacle.
Carpel (pistil)Each sits in its own pit in the top of the receptacle. Only its tip shows. Each one can become a single seed.
ReceptacleThe cone in the middle of the flower, wide end up. After the petals fall it grows into the seed pod.
SeedA hard, nut-like fruit with one seed inside. One sits loose in each pit of the dried pod.
Flower stalk (peduncle)Each flower stands on a stalk of its own. It rises from the rhizome and holds the flower above the water.
The plant 4
LeafRound, like an umbrella. The stalk is joined to the middle of the underside. Some leaves float and some stand above the water.
Leaf stalk (petiole)The long stalk from the rhizome to the surface or above it. It carries a leaf and joins it at the middle.
RhizomeA thick stem that creeps through the mud. The leaves, the flowers and the roots all grow from it. Older books call it the rootstock.
RootsThin roots grow in tufts from the joints of the rhizome. They hold the plant in the mud.
How this list was compiled: Every name checked on 2026-09-30 against sources read that day; a name is kept only where two of them use it: (1) N. L. Britton and A. Brown, An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States and Canada, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (1913, public domain), Nelumbonaceae, https://archive.org/details/illustratedflora02brit; (2) North Carolina State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox, Nelumbo nucifera and Nelumbo lutea, https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/nelumbo-nucifera/ and https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/nelumbo-lutea/; (3) Asa Gray, School and Field Book of Botany (1887 edition, public domain), https://archive.org/details/graysschoolfiel00gray; (4) Wikipedia, Nelumbo nucifera and Nelumbo (text only). Hints and detail lines are in our own words. Licence: own work
The drawing: Drawn for this site on 2026-09-30 from plain geometry; nothing traced or copied. Licence: own work
How it works
This lotus flower diagram shows an open flower from the side, with its front petals lowered so the middle can be seen, and the dried seed pod beside it. The second drawing is the plant in a pond.
Read the full guide
The flower, then the plant
Numbers 1 to 4 are in the flower: a petal, a stamen, a carpel and the receptacle the carpels sit in. Number 5 is a seed in the dried pod and number 6 the flower stalk. Numbers 7 to 10 are on the plant: a leaf, its leaf stalk, the rhizome in the mud and the roots.
The seed pod is the receptacle grown up. Count the pits in one and you have counted that flower's carpels.
A lotus leaf has no notch. Its stalk joins the middle of the underside, where a water lily's leaf is cut to the stalk.
Questions and answers
What is the middle of a lotus flower called?
The receptacle. It is a flat-topped cone with the flower's carpels sunk in pits in its top. Once the petals and stamens have fallen, it grows and dries into the seed pod.
What are the parts of a lotus flower?
Many petals, a ring of many stamens, and in the middle a receptacle holding the carpels. Each carpel can ripen into one nut-like seed. The flower stands on a long stalk that rises from the rhizome.
Where are the seeds of a lotus?
In the pits of the seed pod, one to a pit. Each is a hard, nut-like fruit.
Does a lotus grow from a bulb?
No. It grows from a rhizome, a thick stem that creeps through the mud at the bottom of the pond. Leaves, flowers and roots grow from its joints.