Giant Victoria Regina Waterlily Facts

Origins and History

• The Victoria waterlily origins are in the warm, slow-moving waters of rivers, ponds and lakes across equatorial Brazil, Peru and Guyana. While extant for centuries, European botanists did not learn of the species until several encounters by multiple individuals during the first 40 years of the 19th century. Sir Robert Hermann Schomburgk sent seeds of the Victoria waterlily to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, England, in 1845. Thomas Bridges personally delivered seeds to Kew in 1846 which produced large-leaved plants that did not flower. In fall 1849, the first recorded flowering of the plant occurred in Britain at the hands of Joseph Paxton. Queen Victoria witnessed the floral phenomenon on Nov. 13, 1849.

Features

• Growing from a rhizome embedded in the fertile mucky soil underwater, Victoria waterlily produces large, rounded leaves with prickly undersides. The hollow, prickly stems tether the leaves, measuring 4 to 6 feet in diameter, to the rhizome. The floating yellow-green leaves radiate out from the rhizome, creating a sprawling plant up to 25 feet wide. Purplish green flower buds arise in the center of the plant, directly from the rhizome. Buds open one at a time. In the afternoon, the white flower opens and by that evening smells of pineapple and is receptive to pollen. Beetles transfer pollen from other plants. By the second evening, the white petals age to pink and the flower then sheds pollen. The third day the flower closes and sinks below the water, soon to release the seeds into the water to drift to the mucky bottom to sprout.

Fun Facts

• One healthy, vigorous Victoria waterlily can produce as many as 50 leaves. Each leaf can unfurl at a rate of 1 inch of growth per hour. Each leaf can live as long as six to eight weeks before naturally yellowing and degrading, eventually sinking below the water surface. Numerous photographs exist of humans sitting or standing on the floating leaves of the Victoria waterlily. A small child is easily supported by the leaves, but if upward of 165 lbs. of weight is evenly distributed across the entire leaf blade, an adult could be supported.

Growing Insight

• Ample sunlight is necessary for water to reach temperatures conducive for leafy growth and flowering of a Victoria waterlily. It needs water to be at least 85 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal performance, with 75 F a bare minimum. It is hardy outdoors only in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 11 and warmer, where it is a short-lived perennial that persists for generations through continual seed production and germination. In colder regions, this plant is grown in summer as an annual, killed by fall frosts but replanted from seed indoors in winter and transplanted outdoors anytime from May to early July across the United States.