The species history of ancient lotus

The ancient Chinese lotus is a seedling of a thousand-year-old lotus seed unearthed in 1951 in Pulandian, Xinjin County, Liaoning Province (now Pulandian City, Liaoning Province). Now it is cultivated all over the country.

"There are Echeveria seeds in Ningjin County, Zhaozhou, all buried in the soil, and the age is unknown. Residents dig the soil and often find several dendrobiums. They are shaped like iron and stone, and the flesh is fragrant and does not wither. When thrown into water, lotus flowers will grow."

——According to the Ming Dynasty's "Records of Northern Journey" (Volume 55)

According to historical records, Pulandian City was historically known as Xinjin County. As early as 1923, Japanese scholar Ichiro Ohga collected ancient lotus seeds from the local peat layer during a geological survey in Xinjin County and caused it to germinate. This is related to the structure of lotus seeds. The outer testa of lotus seeds is hard and dense, like a small "sealed bag", sealing the seeds inside, which can prevent the penetration of outside moisture and air, and also prevent the loss of moisture and air inside the seeds. Therefore, the life activities of lotus seeds are very important. Weak, equivalent to dormant state. This is an important reason why ancient lotus seeds still have vitality. In addition, it is also related to the environment in which the ancient lotus seeds were buried. These ancient lotus seeds are buried in a peat layer about 30-60 centimeters deep, and peat has good water-absorbing and moisture-proof properties. In addition, the peat layer is covered with a thick layer of soil, so the ancient lotus seeds are almost in a closed environment. middle. In such an environment, ancient lotus seeds did not have the conditions to take root and sprout, so they were able to preserve their vitality. Nelumbo Adans. is one of the earliest species among angiosperms. According to paleobotanist research on fossils, 135 million years ago, lotus plants were distributed in many water areas in the northern hemisphere. At that time, the giant reptile dinosaurs were in the late stages of rapid decline. They grew on the earth much earlier than the appearance of human ancestors (2 million years ago).

The former Soviet Union's A.H. Christopherovich's "Paleobotany" (1965) stated that Nelumbo fossils were found in the Cretaceous in the Arctic region of North America and the Amur River in Asia (i.e. Heilongjiang) and in Europe and East Asia (Sakhalin Island). ), in the Oligocene and Miocene strata of Japan. At that time, the temperature on the earth was warmer than now. There were about 10 to 12 species of lotus plants, distributed on all five continents. With the advent of the Post-Ice Age, global temperatures dropped, causing many plants to become extinct, while others were forced to migrate, completely breaking their original geographical distribution. Suffering from this disaster, only two species of Lotus plants survived, and their distribution range was reduced. The Chinese lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) is distributed in Asia and northern Oceania, and the American lotus (N.lutea) has migrated to North America. Paleobotanists also pointed out that the Pleistocene to Holocene nectar excavated in Hokkaido and Kyoto, Japan The lotus fossil (2 million years ago) is similar to the modern Chinese lotus; the 10 million-year-old lotus leaf fossil excavated in the Qaidam Basin in China is similar to the modern Chinese lotus. In the 1970s, the Petroleum Exploration and Development Planning Institute of the Ministry of Petroleum and Chemical Industry of China and the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences recorded in the book "Early Tertiary Palynomorphs in the Bohai Sea Coastal Area": ??in Panshan, Liaoning Province, Beidagang, Tianjin, Kenli, Shandong Province, Pollen fossils of two kinds of lotus were found in Guangrao and Cangzhou, Hebei Province. Fossils of Lotus plants have also been found in the strata of the Changchang Basin in Qiongshan, Hainan Island, my country, within the Tertiary tropical phytogeographic region. At present, the original wild lotus is still distributed in the lakes and swamps of Fuyuan, Hulin, Tongjiang, Shangzhi and other counties in Heilongjiang Province.

The above shows that lotus is an ancient plant before the ice age. It is in the same genus as metasequoia (melasequoiagly plostroboides), ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba), Chinese tulip tree (Liriodendron chinese), and North American redwood (Sequoia sempervirens). Representative of relict plants that survived the glaciers of the Ice Age.