Check out this new giant water lily discovered by scientists
- Published
A new species of giant water lily has been identified by scientists.
The lily had been wrongly identified 177 years ago and has been hiding in plain sight ever since!
It is not only new but also record-breaking!
The giant water lily holds the current record for being the largest of the water lilies with leaves growing more than 3m (10ft) wide.
It's been named Victoria boliviana after Queen Victoria and the country of Bolivia, where the plant grows in a single water basin in part of the Amazon river system.
How was the discovery made?
One of the world's leading giant water lily experts, Carlos Magdalena had suspected for a long time that the plant now known as Victoria boliviana was different to two known other giant species it had previously been identified as - Victoria amazonica and Victoria cruziana.
Scientists from the National Herbarium of Bolivia, Santa Cruz Botanic Gardens and Public Botanic Garden La Rinconada - donated some seeds to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew so that he could study them.
Carlos said: "It meant we could grow it side-by-side with the two other species under exactly the same conditions. Once we did this we could very clearly see that every single part of the plant was totally different".
He has since described this discovery as the "highlight" of his career.
Could there be more discoveries to come?
The new species grows in the wild in Bolivia
Giant water lilies have been growing in the gardens at Kew since the 1800s.
They were a natural beauty and marvel even then.
The Waterlily House was built in 1852 and the first class of lilies were named after Queen Victoria.
Giant water lilies have been a long standing attraction at RBG Kew, this is a photo from their archive
Dr Alex Monro, from RBG Kew, said none of the three species have been very well studied.
"We still don't know how many populations there are and how much they vary in size. We don't really understand the pollination biology very well. We don't know a lot about the dispersal of the species - how it transmits itself from one place to another.
"So there are still many unknowns. And I think, because they're so huge - so obvious - people haven't really thought to study them in that much detail."
The description of the new plant has been published in the journal Frontiers in Plant Biology.
- Published26 May 2022
- Published1 June 2022
