The diameter of the leaves can reach 3.2 meters! A new "big head" species of Victoria amazonica has been discovered

Produced by: Science Popularization China

Author:EVEE

Producer: China Science Expo

The Victoria amazonica is a long-standing star in many botanical gardens. Its large round leaves with curled edges float on the water like a small boat, making everyone who sees it want to sit on it and give it a try. (In fact, it can be sat on, and many parks have similar projects for tourists to sit on Victoria amazonica.)

Recently, scientists discovered a new species of Victoria regia, whose leaves can reach 3.2 meters in diameter, making it the largest Victoria regia ever recorded. This Victoria regia grows in the La Rinconada Ecological Park in Bolivia. At first, everyone thought it was just a large Amazonian Victoria regia, until recently, scientists discovered that it was actually a new species in the genus Victoria.

Every year, Taipei City in Taiwan Province of my country holds a royal lotus ride event. Image source: stuff.co.nz

1. When the third type of Victoria amazonica appears

Victoria is native to South America. It was not until the expansion of Western colonialism in the 19th century that European botanists first encountered this amazing species. At first, they thought these South American "giant water lilies" were just one species. Later, they soon realized that there were two species in the Victoria genus, which were named V. amazonica and V. cruziana.

In 1962, a new "friend" was added to the Victoria 'Longwood family - the Longwood Park in the United States hybridized the two native species of Victoria 'Longwood to cultivate a horticultural species: Victoria 'Longwood Hybrid.

Victoria amazonica (Photo source: plants.ces.ncsu.edu)

Surprisingly, the Victoria amazonica, which was originally thought to have only two species, actually hides a third species. Even more interesting is that this discovery actually originated from a botanist's "surfing the Internet." In 2006, water lily expert and botanist Carlos Magdalena saw a photo of Victoria amazonica on the Internet - his intuition told him that this was a new species of Victoria amazonica.

For twenty years, Carlos has been carefully examining every photo of wild Victoria on the Internet. When he saw that photo, he was sure that the plant did not fit the description of the known Victoria species, so it was most likely the third species!

Bolivian Victoria amazonica (Photo source: Wikipedia)

But it wasn’t until a decade later that Carlos had the chance to test whether his suspicions were correct. In 2016, two Bolivian botanical gardens provided a set of seeds from a suspected third species of Victoria amazonica, which Carlos planted at Kew Gardens (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK) and compared with the other two species.

Carlos found that this new species of Victoria regia was different from the other two species in morphology, specifically the distribution of thorns on the leaves and the shape of the seeds. Later, analysis based on genetic markers also supported Carlos's speculation. Scientists extracted DNA samples of this species and found species-specific insertions and deletions of nucleotides in its chloroplast genome through sequencing. With solid evidence, the researchers named this species V. boliviana.

Bolivian Victoria amazonica (Image source: Reference [1])

But what Carlos didn’t expect was that Kew Gardens had always had Bolivian Victoria amazonica.

But before that, people had always mistaken the Bolivian Victoria as the Amazonian Victoria, until scientists later discovered that this Victoria was very similar to the newly identified species, and only then did they confirm its identity. This is really the case: I searched for it among the crowds for thousands of times, and when I turned around, I found the lotus right there, where the lights were dim!

In fact, although there are not many species in the genus Victoria, there are many stories about Victoria. After all, the origin of Victoria is quite remarkable.

2. The plant with the same name as the queen

You may have noticed that the genus name of the Victoria is Victoria. Yes, that is the Queen Victoria that everyone thinks of. The reason why the Victoria is called "Victoria" is probably because it is really big and it is indeed related to the queen.

In the 19th century, Britain was still known as the "Empire on which the Sun Never Sets" and its colonies spread across the globe. On New Year's Day in 1837, explorer Robert Hermann Schomburgk discovered a magical plant during a field survey in British Guiana. He recorded the scene in his diary:

"We soon encountered the object of our curiosity - a botanical wonder! All disasters were forgotten, and I felt myself rewarded as a botanist. An enormous leaf, five or six feet in diameter, rested like a tray, with broad, upturned edges of pale green above, and a vivid crimson beneath: in perfect harmony with this wonderful leaf was the luxuriant flower, composed of hundreds of petals varying in hue from pure white to rose and pink."

The scene of discovering Victoria amazonica (Image source: Reference [2])

He then sent the drawings describing the plant back to the UK and handed them over to the Royal Geographical Society, hoping that the Royal Geographical Society could pass them on to the Botanical Society of London. The Royal Geographical Society did so and sent a set of drawings and descriptions to the Botanical Society of London, but no one expected that this would also sow the seeds for the controversy over the naming of Victoria regia.

Although the Royal Geographical Society of Britain was the sponsor of the Schomburgk expedition, the naming of the Victoria amazonica involved the subsequent royal sponsorship of various associations, which led to conflicts between different associations. There was a great dispute over the naming of the Victoria amazonica for a period of time.

Location where Victoria amazonica was discovered (Image source: Reference [2])

Although Schomburgk originally intended to name the Victoria regia as a gift to Queen Victoria, two groups of people named it at the time. John Lindley, a British botanist, secretary of the Horticultural Society of London and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, named it Victoria regia, while John Edward Gray, the first president of the Botanical Society of London, named it Victoria regina.

Both sides promoted their own names in different communication channels, so both names began to circulate, and no one was willing to accept the other's name, but the royal funding for the Horticultural Society of London and the Royal Geographical Society has shown that in the eyes of Queen Victoria, the winner of this "war" was Lindley.

Victoria regia in the Goeldi Museum in Brazil (Image source: wikipedia)

In fact, Schomburgk was not the first person to discover Victoria regia. In the early 19th century, Bohemian botanist Tadeá Haenke had already discovered Victoria regia in a tributary of the Amazon River. In 1832, German botanist Eduard Friedrich Poeppig named Victoria regia Euryale amazonica. Based on the principle of first come first served, the scientific name of this Victoria regia was later revised from Victoria amazonica.

However, back then, in addition to competing for naming rights, everyone was also working hard on another thing.

3. The Great Greenhouse, the pioneer of modern greenhouses, allows Victoria amazonica to bloom in the UK

When Schomburgk returned from South America and shared his discovery, his news caused a sensation among horticulturists and the public. Newspapers touted the plant, and in the decade after 1837, explorers tried many times to bring seeds back to England to cultivate them, hoping to present the blooming flowers to the Queen.

Victoria amazonica grows in South America, where the climate is hot. It is a challenge to grow Victoria amazonica in the UK, let alone make it bloom. Although Victoria amazonica grows very fast in South America, the fierce competition to present flowers to the Queen lasted for more than ten years. Until a gardener named Joseph Paxton joined the competition. He was the chief gardener of the sixth Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth Manor in Derbyshire. In the early days of working at Chatsworth Manor, Paxton began to try design and eventually built the forerunner of the modern greenhouse - the Great Greenhouse.

Joseph Paxton (Photo: racingnelliebly.com)

On August 3, 1849, Paxton carefully brought an Amazonian water lily to Chatsworth and planted it in a specially prepared area in the large greenhouse. Paxton built a 12-foot (about 3.6 meters) square heated pool in his greenhouse, which contained 5 carts of soil. He used a waterwheel and coal-fired boiler of his own design to heat it, imitating the hot and humid swamp environment of the Amazonian water lily's natural habitat.

Chatsworth Great Greenhouse (Image source: Wikipedia)

The Victoria amazonica soon grew at an astonishing rate, as Schomburgk had seen on the Amazon tributaries. On November 2 of that year, the Victoria amazonica produced its first bud, and Paxton wrote to his employer to inform him of the good news. The news of the flowering spread quickly, and the first flower was presented to Queen Victoria, the namesake of the Victoria amazonica.

“At dusk, Queen Victoria arrived at Chatsworth House. The Great Conservatory was illuminated by 14,000 oil lamps. The petals of the Victoria amazonica flowers unfolded, a faint blush became apparent, and a sweet fragrance filled the air, intoxicating the audience.”

Photo of Victoria amazonica in bloom (Source: Wikipedia)

Today, Victoria amazonica has been introduced to botanical gardens around the world. Visitors can see this majestic plant whenever they want. But how many people still remember the story of how this strange plant arrived here from faraway South America?

References:

Smith, LT, Magdalena, C., Przelomska, NA, Pérez-Escobar, OA, Melgar-Gómez, DG, Beck, S., ... & Monro, AK (2022). Revised Species Delimitation in the Giant Water Lily Genus Victoria (Nymphaeaceae) Confirms a New Species and Has Implications for Its Conservation. Frontiers in Plant Science, 2241.

Opitz, DL (2014). 'The scepter of her pow'r': nymphs, nobility, and nomenclature in early Victorian science. The British Journal for the History of Science, 47(1), 67-94.