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.
The leaves of the Victoria amazonica flower. They reach up to three meters in diameter.
Victoria (waterlily)
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Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Nymphaeales
Family: Nymphaeaceae
Genus: Victoria
Species
Victoria amazonica (Poepp.) Sowerby
Victoria cruziana A. D. Orb
Victoria mattogrossensis
Flower of Victoria cruzianaThe genus Victoria represents the giant water lilies. The most famous, Victoria amazonica, is the largest of all the water lilies with leaves sometimes nearly 3 m in diameter, on stalks 7-8 m in length. Victoria is named after Queen Victoria. V. amazonica was once called Victoria regia, but the species name was superseded.
A second species, V. cruziana, in the Parana-Paraguay basin which is only slightly smaller, with the underside of the leaves purple rather than the red of V. amazonica, and covered with a peachlike fuzz lacking in V. amazonica. V. cruziana opens its flowers at dusk.
A third type, V. mattogrossensis or V. cruziana var. mattogrossensis, found in the pantanal region, resembles V. cruziana except in having huge seeds.
History
"On unbent leaf in fairy guise,
Reflected in the water,
Beloved, admired by hearts and eyes,
Stands Annie, Paxton's daughter..."
Leaves of Victoria cruzianaVictoria regia 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"[1] 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 entirely the lily's warm swampy habitat (no mean feat in winter in England when you only have coal-fired boilers for heating), and a "Mr Ivison" the second and more constantly successful (for Northumberland) at Syon House (now part of Kew Gardens).
The Duke of Devonshire presented, via the person of Paxton, Queen Victoria with one of the first of these flowers, and named it in her honour. Moreover, 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.[2]