Exotic Beauty (37) : Giant Amazon water lily

Exotic Beauty (37) : Giant Amazon water lily

The past years I made several visits to the conservatories of the National Botanic Garden of Belgium where 10.000 (!) plant and tree species originating from the tropics and the subtropics are growing in the greenhouses over there.

Thanks to the warm and moist climate in the conservatories and the intensive maintenance, it’s really amazing what an immense great variety of exotic flowers from all over the world can be seen there, even in the cold winter season !
Flowers whose natural habitat is situated in the rainforest, the mountain forest, isolated islands, deserts, etc……. Places that most of us will never or seldom visit.
Some of the flowers are very rare, extremely colourful or specially shaped.
Others were introduced in Europe by men and became a cultivated species or an ornamental houseplant.

I selected the –to my personal taste- most beautiful flowers that I saw there and made a series of them.

******************************************************************************************

Dutch name : Reuze waterlelie
German name : Riesenseerose
Latin name : Victoria amazonica

Country of origin : Brasil, Colombia, Guyana, Peru

***

The leaves of this plant have a diameter up to 3 meter and can carry a weight of 40kg without sinking.
Every year there’s one day in the National Botanic Garden of Belgium during which parents can let photograph their baby lying on the leaves of this giant waterlily.