of starch. The Ancient Egyptians ate them boiled. In India, it has mostly been eaten as a famine food or as a medicinal (both cooked), but in one area the dried rhizomes were pounded into a sort of bread, and the tubers are often eaten in the floodplains. In Vietnam, the rhizomes were eaten roasted. In Sri Lanka it was formerly eaten as a type of medicine and its price was too high to serve as a normal meal, but in the 1940s or earlier some villagers began to grow water lilies in the paddy fields left uncultivated during the monsoon season (Yala season), and the price dropped. The tubers are called manel here and eaten boiled and in curries. The tubers of all occurring species were eaten in West Africa and Madagascar (where they are called tantamon for blue and laze-laze for white), usually boiled or roasted. In West Africa, usage varied between cultures, in the Upper Guinea the rhizomes were only considered famine foods - here the tubers were either roasted in ashes, or dried and ground into a flour. The Buduma people ate the seeds and rhizomes. Some tribes ate the rhizomes raw. The Hausa people of Ghana, Nigeria and the people of Southern Sudan used the tubers of Nymphaea lotus, the seeds (inside the tubers) are locally referred to as ‘gunsi’ in Ghana. They are ground into flour. In China the tubers were eaten cooked. The plants were also said to be eaten in the Philippines. In the 1950s there were no records of leaves or flowers being eaten. In a North American species, the boiled young leaves and unopened flower buds are said to be edible. The seeds, high in starch, protein, and oil, may be popped, parched, or ground into flour. Potato-like tubers can be collected from the species N. tuberosa (=N. odorata). The tubers of Nymphaea gigantea of Australia were roasted by certain tribes, these turn the colour blue when boiled, the tubers of other species were also roasted elsewhere on that continent. Water lilies were said to have been a major food source for a certain tribe of indigenous Australians in 1930, with the flowers and stems eaten raw, while the "roots and seedpods" were cooked either on an open fire or in a ground oven. Culture The Ancient Egyptians used the water lilies of the Nile as cultural symbols. Since 1580