| Victoria amazonica | |
|---|---|
| Victoria amazonica at the Adelaide Botanic Garden, South Australia | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| Order: | Nymphaeales |
| Family: | Nymphaeaceae |
| Genus: | Victoria |
| Species: | V. amazonica |
| Binomial name | |
| Victoria amazonica (Poepp.) J.C. Sowerby |
|
Victoria amazonica is a species of flowering plant, the largest of the Nymphaeaceae family of water lilies.
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The species has very large leaves, up to 3 m in diameter, that float on the water's surface on a submerged stalk, 7–8 m in length. The species was once called Victoria regia after Queen Victoria, but the name was superseded. V. amazonica is native to the shallow waters of the Amazon River basin, such as oxbow lakes and bayous. It is depicted in the Guyanese coat of arms. The flowers are white the first night they are open and become pink the second night. They are up to 40 cm in diameter, and are pollinated by beetles.
A member of the genus Victoria placed in the Nymphaeaceae family or, sometimes, in the Euryalaceae.[1] 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 new Queen, Victoria, and the species Victoria regia.[2] The spelling in Schomburgk's description in Athenaeum, published the month before, was given as Victoria Regina.[3] 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.[4]
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.[2][2][5] In 1850 James De Carle Sowerby[6] recognised Poeppig's earlier description and transferred its epithet amazonica, this new name was rejected by Lindley. The current name, Victoria amazonica, did not come into widespread use until the twentieth century.[4]
Victoria regia, as it was named, 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"[7] 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[8] received critical acclaim in the Athenaeum, "they are accurate, and they are beautiful".[9] 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.[10]
Legend has it that, a long time ago, the Tupis-Guaranis, indigenous people from Northern Brazil, told that every night, when the moon hid behind the hills far off on the horizon, it was going to live together with its favorite young ladies. They used to say that, if the moon could like one single girl, it would transform her into a star of the sky.
One princess, the Pajé's daughter (Pajé being a significant figure of the indigenous people, similar to a shaman or priest), was impressed with that story. So, at night, when everybody was sleeping and the moon was traveling across the sky, the princess wanted to be a star, so she walked up to the hills and chased the moon, hoping the moon could see her up in the hills.
And so she did, every night, for a very long time.
But the moon did not seem to notice her, even though the crying of the princess could be heard in the distance as well as her sadness and sighs.
One night, the princess saw, in the clear waters of a lake, the image of the moon. The innocent girl wondered if the moon had come down to take her away, so she jumped in the deep waters to join the moon and its lovely young ladies. She was never seen again.
The moon, in return for the beautiful princess's sacrifice, transformed her into a different star, different from the all the others whose light lit up the night sky. So, the moon transformed the princess into a "Star of the Waters", whose flower is the "Vitória Régia".
At that moment, a new plant was born, whose scented white flowers blossom and unfurl only at night. And, when the sun appears in the early morning, the flowers change their color to soft pink.
Data related to Victoria amazonica at Wikispecies