Last year the City of Los Angeles set about to restore Echo Park lake, including bringing back the Asian lotus plants which had mysteriously disappeared a few years ago.
Well, the restoration was a beautiful success. The pink flowered lotus are in bloom right now, in early June. Unlike ordinary water lilies the lotus plants have large leaves and the flowers rise up on stems far above the water surface.
The restoration included setting up a water-filtration system because some people thought that the disappearance was due to pollution. It may have also occurred simply because the lotus plants were almost 80 years old. (Plants don’t live forever, folks!)
The story is that Aimee Semple MacPherson, whose Angelus Temple is right across the street, planted the lotus in the Echo Park lake back in the early 1930s. No one is quite sure if this is just an urban legend, but with her background in Asia it could very well be true.
Not only are the lotus plants in bloom, the water lilies are, too. And there are birds everywhere, including one white heron and a family of very cute and very skittish ducks.
Echo Park, for you out of towners, is quite close to downtown Los Angeles, and even closer to the famous Victorian Homes in Angelino Heights.
