The lotus is thus a "living fossil." Although there are only two varieties of lotus left in the world, botanists want to remove the lotus from the class of water lilies and establish completely separate taxonomic categories.
荷花成了「活化石」，地球上雖然只剩兩種荷花，如今植物界仍認為應將之由「睡蓮科」獨立出來，成為蓮目、蓮科、蓮屬。