The Giant Amazon Water Lily

The Giant Amazon Water Lily, Victoria Amazonica, is found growing naturally in the region of central Brazil known as Amazonia. The immense leaves are the largest of all known aquatic plants and float on the surface of hidden ponds and lagoons deep in the forest tributaries of the Amazon River.


Incredibly little was known about the full life-cycle natural history of V. Amazonica until fairly recently. The leaves can exceed seven feet in diameter. The stems can reach as much as eighteen feet from the river bottom along the banks, and grow with the rising waters that cover the lowland floodplains during the rainy season. Between December and March every year the Amazon River rises as much as 30 feet and covers an area that is the size of California.


V.Amazonica appears to grow not from the deepest water areas but from slightly shallower sites along the banks of some of the smaller tributaries that branch off of the main river. Plants sprout from seeds and the stems must grow rapidly to keep up with water that can rise as rapidly as six or seven inches per day. Eventually each plant will produce five to ten leaves each month



Victoria Amazonica was earliest described by British explorers in 1801 and was named after the British Queen Victoria. Nearly 50 years later it was first brought to bloom in "captivity" in England, inspiring a wave of enthusiasm for the size and beauty of the flowers. All Victoria Amazonicas are night blooming, scenting the afternoon and evening air with their pineapple-like fragrance in anticipation of the first night flower, huge and white.

Magnificent white female flowers appear one day, then turn into pink male flowers the next day, and are pollinated by several species of beetles.





On the second night the Giant Water Lily flower becomes deep pink or ruby red depending on the individual plant.



The plants are armed, everywhere except the top surface of the pads, with thorns. The undersides of the leaves are a marvel of structural engineering, support for the highly buoyant pad surfaces



It had always been a mystery how these Giant Water Lilies survived the dry season. The seeds that were deposited on the parched floodplain surfaces during the hottest weather would dry out and die and seeds that fell in the river were eaten by fish.


V.Amazonica is generally regarded as an annual. This means that it grows only from seed (no tubers or rhizomes to perpetuate it from season to season). Since the seeds don't keep well, the Giant Water Lily must reproduce fresh seeds every year. This is the only way to insure that there will be another season of plants. So, how were these seeds surviving?

It has since been observed that during low water, among the vast grassland marshes filled with spongy muck, the main lily seed beds, were being spring fed from fresh underground pools.

These isolated ponds, hidden and protected from the main river and impossible to traverse through the miles of swamps, had no fish in them to eat the seeds. This combination of circumstances hold the secret to the fragile survival of the Giant Amazon Water Lily.



With the rich, fertile soil of the Amazon River these monsterous lilypads will grow from a pea-sized seed to a huge blooming plant in a matter of months.
As the cycle of life progresses, The waterlily will produce fruit, eventually decline and then slowly die as the weather may dictate...



but resting safely, in the gentle protection of some underground spring, lie the seeds of this wonderous giant that will bring life anew and magic back to the Amazon River Basin once again next year.