Nymphaea lotus Coptic flag. Claire Waight Keller included the flower to represent Malawi in Meghan Markle's wedding veil, which included the distinctive flora of each Commonwealth country. In some parts of Africa the rhizomes and tubers are eaten for the starch they contain either boiled, roasted or ground to a flour after drying. The young fruits are sometimes consumed as a salad. The seeds are turned into a meal. The tubers or the seeds are used as a famine food in India. The ancient Egyptians cultivated the white lotus in ponds and marshes. This flower often appears in ancient Egyptian decorations. They
Flower bouquet The arrangement of flowers for home or building decor has a long history throughout the world. The oldest evidence of formal arranging of bouquets in vases comes from ancient Egypt, and depictions of flower arrangements date to the Old Kingdom (~2500 BCE). The sacred lotus was often used, as were herbs, palms, irises, anemones, and narcissus. In some cultures, ancient practises still survive today, for example in ikebana, the art of flower-arranging that comes from Japan. The oldest known book on flower-arranging is Japanese and dates from 1445. Simplicity and linear form are core features of ikebana, which has had