Victoria amazonica

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Queen Victoria's water lily
Victoria amazonica edit 1.jpg
Victoria amazonica at the Adelaide Botanic Garden, South Australia
Scientific classification edit
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Order: Nymphaeales
Family: Nymphaeaceae
Genus: Victoria
Species:
V. amazonica
Binomial name
Victoria amazonica
Synonyms[1][2][3]
  • Euryale amazonica Poepp
  • Nymphaea victoria M.R.Schomb. ex Lindl.
  • Victoria regina R.H.Schomb.
  • Victoria regia Lindl.

Victoria amazonica is a species of flowering plant, the largest of the water lily family Nymphaeaceae. It is the national flower of Guyana.[citation needed] Its native regions are Guyana and tropical South America.

Description[]

The Victoria amazonica has very large leaves, up to 3 m (10 ft) in diameter, that float on the water's surface on a submerged stalk, 7–8 m (23–26 ft) in length. It is the largest waterlily in the world. V. amazonica is native to the shallow waters of the Amazon River basin, such as oxbow lakes and bayous. In their native habitat, the flowers first begin to open as the sun starts to set and can take up to 48 hours to fully open.[4] These flowers can grow up to 40 cm (16 in) in diameter. Each plant will continue to produce flowers for a full growing season and they have co-evolved with a species of scarab beetle of the genus Cyclocephala, to improve its pollination.[5] All the buds in a single patch will begin to open at the same time and as they do, they give off a fruity smell.[4] At this point in time the flower petals are white and the beetles become attracted to both the colour and the smell of the flower. By nightfall the flower closes, the odor stops being emitted, and the beetle becomes trapped inside the carpellary appendages inside the flower.[4] Here, the stamens are protected by the paracarpels and for the next day the flower continues to remain closed. The cavity in which the beetle is trapped is composed of a spongy, starchy tissue that provides nourishment for the beetle. During this time, anthocyanins start to be released by the plant, which in turn changes the petals from white to a reddish pink colour, a sign that the flower will have been pollinated.[4] As the beetle munches away inside the flower, the stamens fall inward and the anthers, which have already fallen, drop pollen on the stamens.[4] During the evening of the second day, the flowers will have opened enough to release the beetle and as it pushes its way through the stamens it becomes covered in pollen.[4] These insects will then go on to find a newly opened water lily and cross-pollinate it with the pollen they are carrying from the previous flower. This process was described in detail by Sir Ghillean Prance and Jorge Arius.[4][6]

The species was once called Victoria regia after Queen Victoria, but the name was superseded. It is depicted in the Guyanese coat of arms.[7] They can hold 65 pounds and at least 2-3 human beings.[citation needed]

Classification[]

Illustration by Fitch, 1851

The species is a member of the genus Victoria, placed in the family Nymphaeaceae or, sometimes, in the Euryalaceae.[8] The first published description of the genus was by John Lindley in October 1837, based on specimens of this plant returned from British Guiana by Robert Schomburgk. Lindley named the genus after the newly ascended Queen Victoria, and the species Victoria regia.[1] The spelling in Schomburgk's description in Athenaeum, published the month before, was given as Victoria Regina.[2] Despite this spelling being adopted by the Botanical Society of London for their new emblem, Lindley's was the version used throughout the nineteenth century.[3][9]

An earlier account of the species, Euryale amazonica by Eduard Friedrich Poeppig, in 1832 described an affinity with Euryale ferox. A collection and description was also made by the French botanist Aimé Bonpland in 1825.[1][10] In 1850 James De Carle Sowerby[11] recognized Poeppig's earlier description and transferred its epithet amazonica. The new name was rejected by Lindley. The current name, Victoria amazonica, did not come into widespread use until the twentieth century.[3]

History[]

"On unbent leaf in fairy guise, Reflected in the water, Beloved, admired by hearts and eyes, Stands Annie, Paxton's daughter...": "The Gigantic Waterlily (Victoria Regia), In Flower At Chatsworth", 1849

Victoria regia, as it was named, was described by Tadeáš Haenke in 1801.[12] It was once the subject of rivalry between Victorian gardeners in England. Always on the look out for a spectacular new species with which to impress their peers, Victorian "Gardeners"[13] such as the Duke of Devonshire, and the Duke of Northumberland started a well-mannered competition to become the first to cultivate and bring to flower this enormous lily. In the end, the two aforementioned Dukes became the first to achieve this, Joseph Paxton (for the Duke of Devonshire) being the first in November 1849 by replicating the lily's warm swampy habitat (not easy in winter in England with only coal-fired boilers for heating), and a "Mr Ivison" the second and more constantly successful (for Northumberland) at Syon House.

The species captured the imagination of the public, and was the subject of several dedicated monographs. The botanical illustrations of cultivated specimens in Fitch and W.J. Hooker's 1851 work Victoria Regia[14] received critical acclaim in the Athenaeum, "they are accurate, and they are beautiful".[15] The Duke of Devonshire presented Queen Victoria with one of the first of these flowers, and named it in her honour. The lily, with ribbed undersurface and leaves veining "like transverse girders and supports", was Paxton's inspiration for The Crystal Palace, a building four times the size of St. Peter's in Rome.[16]

Gallery[]

  • Underside of a leaf

  • Underside of a leaf

  • Leaf

  • Flower bud, Adelaide Botanic Gardens

  • Flower

  • In

  • In Kobe Kachoen

  • In the Adelaide Botanic Gardens

  • Victoria Regia in bloom in the Hortus Botanicus Leiden at the end of the 19th century

  • Victoria Amazonica - Giant water lilies in the Amazon basin near Manaus, Brazil

  • Giant water lilies in the Amazon basin near Manaus, Brazil

  • A bird on Victoria Amazonica Giant water lily near Manaus, Brazil

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c Knotts, Kit. "Victoria's History". Victoria Adventure. Knotts. Archived from the original on 2009-04-14. Retrieved 2009-04-04.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b R.H.Schomb., Athenaeum 515:661. Sep 9. 1837
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c Trehane, Piers; Pagels, Walter (2001). "Victoria Regia or Victoria Regina? How A Politics Can Change A Waterlily Name". Letters. (cited at GRIN). Victoria Adventure. Archived from the original on 2009-08-13. Retrieved 2009-04-04.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Prance, Ghillean T.; Arius, Jorge R. (1975). "A study of the floral biology of Victoria amazonica (Poepp.) Sowerby (Nymphaeaceae)". Acta Amazonica. 5 (2): 109–139. doi:10.1590/1809-43921975052109.
  5. ^ SEYMOUR, ROGER S.; MATTHEWS, PHILIP G. D. (December 2006). "The Role of Thermogenesis in the Pollination Biology of the Amazon Waterlily Victoria amazonica". Annals of Botany. 98 (6): 1129–1135. doi:10.1093/aob/mcl201. ISSN 0305-7364. PMC 2803590. PMID 17018568.
  6. ^ "Myths and Misunderstandings About Victoria". www.victoria-adventure.org. Archived from the original on 15 August 2017. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  7. ^ Knotts, Kit. "Victoria's history". Water Gardeners International. Retrieved 10 August 2020.
  8. ^ "Genus: Victoria Lindl". Germplasm Resources Information Network. United States Department of Agriculture. 27 Jan 2005. Archived from the original on 2009-08-13. Retrieved 2009-04-04.
  9. ^ Opitz, Donald L. (21 June 2013). "'The sceptre of her pow'r': nymphs, nobility, and nomenclature in early Victorian science". The British Journal for the History of Science. 47 (1): 67–94. doi:10.1017/S0007087413000319. S2CID 143944267.
  10. ^ "Nymphaeaceae Victoria Lindl". Plant Name Details. International Plant Name Index. 2005. Archived from the original on 2009-08-13. Retrieved 2009-04-04.
  11. ^ Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 2, 6, 310
  12. ^ "Sonderausstellung 2004 | BGBM". Bgbm.org. Archived from the original on 2016-11-03. Retrieved 2016-11-02.
  13. ^ In reality they did little or no actual gardening at all, but employed talented horticulturalists such as Joseph Paxton (for Devonshire) and the forgotten Mr Ivison (for Northumberland) to run their estates and gardens.
  14. ^ "Victoria Regia : or, Illustrations of the Royal water-lily, in a series of figures chiefly made from specimens flowering at Syon and at Kew by Walter Fitch; with descriptions by Sir W. J. Hooker. ".
  15. ^ Allibone, Samuel Austin (1863). A critical dictionary of English literature and British and American authors. 1. George W. Childs.
  16. ^ H. Peter Loewer. The Evening Garden: Flowers and Fragrance from Dusk Till Dawn. Timber Press, 2002. ISBN 978-0-88192-532-6. Page 130.

External links[]

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