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
National Association of Flower Arrangement Societies development as lists of judges, teachers, demonstrators and lecturers were set up and the idea of a national journal was explored. The Flower Arranger magazine was published in March 1961 as an A5 publication and is still going strong fifty years later. Over the next five decades NAFAS developed and became known throughout the world as a flower arranging organisation, of men and women, and membership peaked at 100,000. Activities for members are organised at level, area and national level. At local level each flower club arranges an annual programme which includes flower arranging demonstrations by trained and qualified NAFAS