Nelumbo is a genus of aquatic plants with large, showy flowers. Members are commonly called lotus, though "lotus" is a name also applied to various other plants and plant groups, including the unrelated genus Lotus. Members outwardly resemble those in the family Nymphaeaceae ("water lilies"), but Nelumbo is actually very distant to Nymphaeaceae. "Nelumbo" is derived from the Sinhalese word Sinhalese: නෙළුම් neḷum, the name for the lotus Nelumbo nucifera. A third, extinct species, Nelumbo aureavallis, is known from Eocene fossils from North Dakota in the United States.