Amazing stories about plants

The giant water lily

Some plants impress by their sheer size, others by the outstanding beauty of their flowers and some by the curious nature of their growth or the shape of their leaves. There are plants, too, that have achieved fame because of the difficulties of their culture and the challenge they offer to gardeners. But is there any plant that better combines all these characteristics than the giant water lily of the Amazon, Victoria amazonica, with its 6ft [1.8m]-diameter leaves capable of supporting a child?

This astonishing plant was discovered in the 1830s, but for some time resisted all attempts to grow it in England. Eventually, Sir William Hooker succeeded in raising it from seed at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Surrey, and to this day it is treated there as an annual, with seed being sown in pots in January and placed in the water tank in May – three months later the leaves may be 6ft [1.8m] across.

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