Having learned to be a confident botanical smuggler from my father, at a young age - I collected the seeds of Nelumbo Nucifera from the Pamplemousse Botanical Gardens in Mauritius. I smuggled a pocketful of these  contraband seeds back to Zimbabwe with me along with grand ideas for our lily pond at Maduma. 

After various failed attempts at germination I found that filing the ends of the seeds and then soaking them overnight in hot water did the trick, but, alas the resulting plantlets never did grow beyond seedlings and I never became a Lotus eater. 

The leaves of the Lotus are superhydrophobic and repel water. Nanostructures on the leaves are coated in hydrophobic wax and the the resulting uneven surface traps air between water and leaf, causing the water to roll off and this is known as "The Lotus Effect".