LOTUSES AND THE MOON

[Madhav Deshpande]

Dominik,
	I have not personally seen the night-blooming lotuses, because 
the places where I was out at night in Pune just did not happen to have 
them.  However, I have seen the Nishigandha flowers.  There is also 
another flower called Raat-RaaNi which blooms at night.  I have this 
particular plant as a house-plant in our Ann Arbor home, and, yes, it 
indeed blooms at night.  
	Madhav 

On Fri, 17 Mar 1995, Dominik Wujastyk wrote:

> Dear Allen (and all),
> 
> Thank you so much for taking the trouble to follow up the
> Kumuda-flowering-by-night question.  I too have been unable yet to find
> any *botanical* description of Nymphaea lotus, Linn. that mentions
> anything about blooming at night.  There do exist Indian plants which
> bloom at night, like the nishaagandhi cactus (a neologism for
> Phyllocactus latifrons (gen. epiphyllum);  in a recent newspaper article
> about this cactus, in the Hindu, the author referred to it as "moon
> lover", without any reason beyond poetic fancy).  But not the kumuda?
> 
> Come on, Ashok and Madhav: didn't you sit beside a tank of kumudas all
> night during your youth?  What happened (to the flowers, I mean :-).
> 
> Dominik
>  
>