Claudio Nicoletti de Fraga Photo - © JBRJ

With its big leaves, similar to floating trays, the Victoria waterlily has been admired for its splendor by visitors at the Frei Leandro pond, shaped like and at the heart of the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Gardens.

Indigenous Brazilian people have legends that explain the origin of the Victoria waterlily. According to one of them, a cabocla girl, enraptured by love, wanted to touch Laci - the moon - to become a star and satiate her passion. Seeing the moon reflected in the surface of a lake, the young woman dived, thinking she could touch it, and drowned. Touched by the fate of the beautiful cabocla, Laci changed her into a star of the water: the Victoria waterlily.

The first specimens that bloomed at our Botanical Garden were grown from seeds brought from Mato Grosso by botanist Frederico Carlos Hoehne, around 1910. Previous introduction trials had been performed by Barbosa Rodrigues, but without much success (Cruls, 1944).

An interesting note that demonstrates the possibility of better-looking plants in cultivation than in nature is found in a later report by Gastão Cruls (1945) during his expedition to the Amazon from 1926 to 1928: "There are three or four leaves of "vitória-régia" floating on the still water. They are weak and are far from resembling the ones cultivated at Rio de Janeiro, exploding in magnificent flowers".

Additional specimens were donated in 2000 by the Goeldi Museum in Pará, Brazil, and now grow along with the offspring of the original introduction that germinated after the restoration of the Frei Leandro Pond in that same year, increasing the genetic diversity of our specimens, since the original collections were performed at very distant sites.

Bibliography:

G. Cruls, Hiléia Amazônica. São Paulo. Editora Nacional. 1944. pg. 34.
G. Cruls, A Amazônia que eu vi. São Paulo. Editora Nacional. 1945. pg. 11.