A giant water lily grown at Kew Gardens has been declared new to science in the first discovery of its kind in more than a century.
Scientists at the south-west London garden had suspected for decades that there might be a third species of giant water lily, and worked with researchers in its native Bolivia to see if their theory was correct.
In 2016, Bolivian institutions the Santa Cruz de la Sierra Botanical Garden and La Rinconada Gardens donated a collection of seeds of a giant water lily of the suspected third species. They were germinated and grown at Kew so they could be grown side by side with the other two species. The scientists also examined the DNA of the three plants and found that they were distinctly different.
The three species in the genus are Victoria amazonica, cruziana and boliviana, named after Queen Victoria. The results, published in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science, suggest that the new species is most closely related to Victoria cruziana and that they split about a million years ago.
Natalia Przelomska, a scientist at Kew who worked on the project, said: “In the face of rapid biodiversity loss, describing new species is a task of fundamental importance; we hope that our multidisciplinary framework can inspire other researchers looking for approaches to rapidly and robustly identify new species.
Carlos Magdalena said the discovery of the third species was the greatest achievement of his 20-year career at Kew. Photo: Innes Stewart-Davidson/Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
With leaves growing up to three meters in the wild, it is also the largest giant water lily on the planet. The striking lily has flowers that turn from white to pink and bears spiny petioles, the stalk that attaches the leaves to the stem. Naturally found in the aquatic ecosystems of the Llanos de Moxos, the current record for the largest plant of the species is held by La Rinconada Gardens in Bolivia, where the leaves reach 3.2 meters.
Specimens of this large aquatic plant have been in the herbarium at Kew for 177 years and in the national herbarium of Bolivia for 34 years, but it was generally thought to be one of the other two species.
Scientists have named it Victoria boliviana in honor of its South American home. There is a gap in our knowledge of giant water lilies as there are very few specimens of the original plants used to classify and name the species in the Victorian era. This may be because giant water lilies are difficult to collect from the wild.
Kew’s scientific and botanical researcher, horticulturist Carlos Magdalena, said the discovery was the biggest achievement of his 20-year career at Kew.
He added: “Ever since I first saw a photo of this plant online in 2006, I was convinced it was a new species. Gardeners know their plants intimately; we can often recognize them at a glance.
“It was clear to me that this plant did not fully fit the description of any of the known Victoria species and therefore had to be third.” For almost two decades, I scrutinized every single photo of wild Victoria water lilies on the Internet, a luxury that a botanist of the 18th, 19th, and most of the 20th centuries did not have.”
The Bolivian specimen used to describe the new species was collected in 1988 by Dr Stefan G Beck, Professor Emeritus at the National Herbarium of Bolivia, who believed it to be Victoria cruziana.
Scientists have named the plant Victoria boliviana in honor of its South American homeland. Photo: Innes Stewart-Davidson/Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
He said: “When the National Herbarium of Bolivia was born in 1984, there were very few scientific collections for Bolivia and many places to study, but I focused my interest on an area in the Llanos de Moxos. For several years I had the opportunity to collect aquatic plants in the flooded areas of the Yakuma River, and obviously I longed to see the Reina Victoria that the locals told me about.
“However, it took me years to find this huge plant. Finally, in March 1988, after sailing over two hours up the Yakuma River in search of tributaries with some huge leaves and a few flowers, I collected and deposited in the National Herbarium of Bolivia what turned out to be a specimen of Victoria boliviana, now the type specimen. It was a great find and one I will always remember.”
The plant can now be seen in the Water Lily House and the Princess of Wales Conservatory at Kew Gardens. Kew is the only place in the world where you can see the three described species of Victoria together side by side.
Giant water lilies – the wonder of the Victorian era
The Water Lily House at Kew Gardens was opened in 1852 and was built to house the giant plants discovered by explorers in the Amazon basin.
The giant water lily Victoria amazonica drew crowds to admire its huge round leaves, strong enough to support the weight of a child.
There was a race among botanists to present the first flower of a giant water lily to Queen Victoria after Kew Gardens tried for a decade to cultivate the seeds. Six of these were successfully germinated, with some being preserved and the rest sent to Syon House in London and Chatsworth House in Darbyshire.
Despite the astonishment of the Western world, the plant was well known to the indigenous people of the Amazon, who used it for food and medicine.
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