A giant waterlily species has been newly identified in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom. The species, belonging to the famous giant waterlily genus 'Victoria', is now the largest waterlily in the world.


The study outlining the new botanical discovery was published July 4 in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science. The giant waterlily genus Victoria is named after England's Queen Victoria in 1852. 


A team of researchers headed by Kew's scientific and botanical research horticulturist Carlos Magdalena, freelance Kew botanical artist Lucy Smith, and biodiversity genomics researcher Natalia Przelomska, alongside Bolivian partners, have been able to confirm the giant waterlily as a new scientific species using novel data, after years of investigation.


Victoria boliviana Is “One Of The Botanical Wonders Of The World”


The newly identified giant waterlily species has been named Victoria boliviana, in honour of Bolivian partners and the South American home of the waterlily where it grows in the aquatic ecosystems of Llanos de Moxos. Giant waterlilies are native to tropical South America and Asia.


According to the official website of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Victoria boliviana has flowers that turn from white to pink and bear spiny petioles. The leaves of the waterlily grow as wide as three metres in the wild. La Rinconada Gardens in Bolivia holds the current record for the largest species. The leaves of Victoria boliviana found in the La Rinconada Gardens have reached 3.2 metres. 


Victoria boliviana marks the first discovery of a giant waterlily in over a century and breaks the record as the largest in the world. 


The plant specimens have been sitting in Kew's Herbarium for 177 years. New expertise and data have revealed the giant waterlily as new to science. 


A botanical horticulturist at Royal Botanic Gardens, who drove forward the discovery, has described the waterlily species as "one of the botanical wonders of the world".


Efforts Behind The Discovery


For decades, species in the genus Victoria have been poorly characterised. 'Type specimens', which are specimens of the original plant used to formally describe the species, are absent in global plant collections, which explains the poor characterisation of the species. The reason why type specimens are not found is that the giant waterlilies are difficult to collect in the wild. 


Victoria amazonica was the first species to be named in the genus Victoria, in 1832. One of the factors which led to the original misidentification of Victoria boliviana is that data have been lacking to enable comparisons of Victoria amazonica against any new species found since.


The study authors compiled all existing information from historical records, horticulture and geography, in order to improve knowledge of Victoria. They assembled a dataset of the species' characteristics using citizen science, and specimens from herbaria and living collections around the world. Citizen science involves the use of iNaturalist app and social media posts tagging Victoria and giant waterlilies. 


Suspicions About A Third Species In Victoria Genus


The authors had suspected that there are three species in the iconic genus Victoria — Victoria amazonica, Victoria cruziana, and Victoria boliviana. The data collected by them confirmed their suspicion. Scientists Natalia Przelomska and Oscar A. Pérez-Escobar from Kew, who analysed the DNA of Victoria boliviana, found it was genetically different from the other two species. 


According to the study, Victoria boliviana is most closely related to Victoria cruziana, and diverged from the latter around a million years ago.


In a statement released by Royal Botanic Gardens, Przelomska said in the face of a fast rate of biodiversity loss, describing new species is a task of fundamental importance. 


Carlos Magdalena, a world expert on waterlilies, had suspected for years there was a third species in the Victoria genus. He began making enquiries into gardens in Bolivia to confirm his suspicions.


Bolivian institutions Santa Cruz de La Sierra Botanic Garden and La Rinconada Gardens donated a collection of giant waterlily seeds from the suspected third species, in the year 2016. Carlos, who germinated and grew the seeds at Kew, watched the waterlily grow side-by-side with the other two Victoria species, and concluded that something was different. He visited Bolivia in the year 2019 to check out the waterlily in the wild. 


Carlos said he has learnt a lot in the process of officially naming this new species and it has been the "biggest achievement" of his 20-year career at Kew.


Researcher Made Nocturnal Observations Of Giant Waterlilies


Lucy Smith was working on a project to make contemporary scientific illustrations of Victoria amazonica and Victoria cruziana. This is a task which was last attempted by Kew artist Walter Hood Fitch in the 19th century. 


The flowers of giant waterlilies appear only at night. Therefore, Lucy made several nocturnal vigils to the glasshouses to capture the flowers for drawing and painting. 


The first flowers of Victoria boliviana opened on a stormy evening in July 2018. This is when Lucy shared Carlos's suspicion that the waterlily was unique. She decided to describe the differences using illustrations, and observed a similarity between the new plant and the one which Fitch drew from a specimen collected in Bolivia in 1845. This proved that both the plants are the same species. Victoria boliviana was unknown as a new species to Flitch in 1847. 


Bolivian Specimen Of Victoria boliviana Was Collected In 1988 – But Was Not Known As A New Species


Dr Stephan G Beck, a researcher of the National Herbarium of Bolivia, partnered with the Kew team to formally describe the new species, and collected the type specimen for the waterlily unknowingly in 1988, thinking it was Victoria cruziana. According to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Beck's specimen has a higher value than the 1845 Fitch specimen because it provides better knowledge about the species.


Victoria boliviana can now be seen in the Waterlily House and the Princess of Wales Conservatory at Kew Gardens, the only place in the world where one can see the three described species of Victoria together. 


DNA analysis revealed that Victoria boliviana was genetically very different from the other two species, and diverged from Victoria cruziana around a million years ago.


The Kew Waterlily House was originally built to house the "natural wonder" of the Victorian age, the giant waterlily Victoria amazonica. Opened in 1852, the Kew Waterlily House holds giant waterlilies which amaze visitors with their huge circular leaves strong enough to support the weight of a child.


The underside of the leaves of Victoria boliviana resemble a cross between a suspension bridge and the roof of an old cathedral.


The Kew Gardens also house Nymphaea thermarum, the world's smallest waterlily, which is extinct in the wild.