In Great Britain, in the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew a new species of lily was discovered, which was mistakenly considered a different species. This new species turned out to be the world record holder in size — the leaves grow more than 3 meters wide.
This is reported by the BBC.
Horticulturist Carlos Magdalena, one of the worldʼs leading experts on water lilies, had long suspected that this plant was different from two other known giant species, V Cruziana and V Amazonica. Therefore, researchers from Bolivia (National Herbarium of Bolivia, Santa Cruz Botanical Gardens, and La Rinconada Public Botanical Garden) donated some seeds to the Kʼu Botanic Gardens.
"This meant that we could grow it side by side with two other species in exactly the same conditions. Once we did that, we could clearly see that each individual part of the plant was completely different," said Carlos Magdalena.
The new species was named Victoria boliviana — in honor of Bolivia, where it grows in one of the water basins of the Amazon, and botanical illustrator Lucy Smith made detailed scientific drawings of all three species.
This is the first discovery of a new giant water lily in more than a century, and it is now the largest in the world. The Kew Botanic Garden has a long history with plants: the House of Water Lilies was created in 1852 to display its collections. Discovered in the 1800s, the giants were a natural wonder at the time and were named after Queen Victoria.