The Whatsit? Challenge
Put on your thinking cap and test your Heritage knowledge. Each month we feature a new Whatsit? Challenge to tickle your brain cells. Subscribe to our e-newsletter to receive the Whatsit? Challenge direct to your inbox. You can sign up by entering your email address in the red box in the lefthand navigation bar on this page.
This month, we've got a Whatsit? from outside Heritage museums' doors, from somewhere in nature. Can you guess what this object is? Once you've made your guess, scroll down the page for the correct answer. Is it a:
A) Fossilized sea sponge
B) Seed Pod
C) Yellow jacket nest
D) "Bear Paw" fungus
E) Storage cubbie for chipmunks
F) Lunar crater
If you said B, you’re right! This dried seed pod comes from the lotus plant (Nelumbo nucifera), which grows in southeast Asia. Although this one is empty, each hole in the cone-shaped pod would originally have held a single seed. In addition to having beautiful flowers, the lotus is edible. Fresh lotus seeds can be popped like popcorn, but are also put to a variety of other tasty uses, especially as a sweetened paste in traditional Japanese pastries.
The lotus and its cousins, water lilies, have carried symbolic meaning for thousands of years. Water lilies or ‘Egyptian lotus’ appear on the walls of pharoahs’ tombs and in ancient paintings in Cambodia and China as well as in myths and stories from Homer’s Odyssey to Buddhist parables. In many Eastern spiritual traditions, a blooming lotus represents purity and divine beauty.
The dried seed heads are frequently used in decorative floral arrangements, but here at Heritage you might find them alongside the pine cones, shelf fungus, spiraling vines and other unusual treasures that await discovery in Hidden Hollow!
Congratulations to those of you who guessed correctly. And for those who did not, there's always next month to try the Whatsit? Challenge again!