What Is the Longest Approximate Time That Lotus Seeds Can Lie Dormant?

Dating Viable Lotus Seeds

• The age of indirectly dated lotus seeds is inferred from the known age of nearby artifacts. For example, viable lotus seeds were recovered from a 10,000-year-old canoe buried in a lake near Tokyo. The canoe was dated by radiocarbon technology but the seeds were not, so an official lotus seed viability of 10,000 years is not officially accepted. Scientists acknowledge only directly dated records, done by measuring the decay of carbon molecules in seeds or by using an accelerator mass spectrometer to separate and date molecules. The oldest directly dated, viable lotus seeds were recovered from a dry lake in Putlantien, Liaoning province, in northeastern China. Those seeds were from lotus plants cultivated by Buddhists who introduced their religion in the area.

Early Viability Records

• In 1955, paleontologist Ralph W. Cheney of the University of California, Berkeley, used radiocarbon technology to date viable Putlantien lotus seeds collected by Japanese botanist Ichiro Ohga in the 1920s. Cheney found the seeds to be 1,040 years old, plus or minus 210 years. In 1994, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used accelerator mass spectroscopy to date viable seeds from the Pulantien area as being 332 years old, plus or minus 135 years. These seeds all germinated in less than four days.

Oldest Lotus Seed Viability

• In 1995, University of California research biologist Jane Shen-Miller germinated Pulantien area lotus seeds that she dated by radiocarbon technology to be 1,288 years old, plus or minus 250 years. These are the oldest directly dated, viable seeds of any plant ever reported.

Germinating Lotus Seeds

• To germinate a lotus seed, you have to file away one end of their hard coat to expose the endosperm or covering that surrounds the embrhyo. This is called scarification. If you keep the scarified seeds moist and at 77 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit, a seedling should emerge in 24 hours.