The diameter of the leaves can reach 3.2 meters!I found a new species of Wang Lian's "big head"

Wang Lian is a long -standing star in many botanical gardens -the large circular leaves on the rolled rolled rolling floating on the water is like a boat, so that everyone who sees them wants to sit on and try. (In fact, it can really sit, and many parks will have similar projects, allowing tourists to sit on Wang Lian.)

Recently, scientists have discovered a new kind of Wang Lian, which can reach 3.2 meters in diameter and is the largest Wang Lian in the world currently recorded. This Wang Lian grew up in the Larinkonada Ecological Park in Bolivia. At first, everyone thought that this was just a big head in Amazon Wang Lian. Until recently, scientists discovered that this is actually a new species in Wang Lian.

Taipei City, Taiwan Province, holds Wang Lian's activity pictures every year. Source: stuff.co.nz

1. When the third kind of Wang Lian appears

Wang Lian's origin was in South America. Until the expansion of Western colonial pace in the 19th century, European botanists first met the magical species of Wang Lian for the first time. At the beginning, they thought these South American "giant water lilies" were just a species. Later, they quickly realized that there were two species in Victoria, and these two species were named Amazon Wanglian (V. Amazonica) and Cruziana (V. Cruziana).

In 1962, the Wang Lian family also added a new "child" -nown Changmu Park in the United States to cultivate a gardening species with the two Wang Lian's original species hybridization: Victoria 'Longwood Hybrid.

Changmu Wanglian (picture source: plants.cess.ncsu.edu)

Surprisingly, Wang Lian, who had only thought of only two species, actually hidden the third species silently. What's more interesting is that this discovery stems from a "online surfing" by a botanist. In 2006, Carlos Magdalena, an expert and botanicalist, saw a photo of Wang Lian on the Internet -Intuition told him that this was a new Wanglian species.

For two decades, Carlos has been carefully checking the photos of each wild Wang Lian on the Internet. When he saw the photo, he was sure that this plant did not conform to the description of the known Wang Lian species. There is a high probability that the third kind of Wang Lian!

Bolivia Wanglian (Picture Source: Wikipedia)

But until ten years later, Carlos had the opportunity to test whether his guess was correct. In 2016, Bolivia's two botanical gardens provided a set of seeds from suspected third Wanglian species. Carlos planted them in Qiu Garden (British Royal Botanical Garden) and compared with other two types of Wang Lian.

Carlos found that in shape, this Wanglian new species specifically is the distribution of spines on the blades and the shape of the seeds, which is different from the other two species. Follow -up, based on genetic labeling analysis also supported Carlos speculation, scientists extracted the DNA samples of this species, and found that the unique nucleotide in the chloroplast genome in the chloroplast genome was found through sequencing. After conclusive evidence, the researchers named the species V. Boliviana.

Bolivia Wanglian (Picture Source: Reference [1])

But what CARLOS did not expect was that Qiu Yuan had always had Bolivia Wanglian.

But before that, people always regarded the Bolivia Wanglian as Amazon Wang Lian. It was not until later that the scientists found that this Wang Lian was very similar to the new species just confirmed, and then confirmed its identity. Here really: the crowd seemed to be thousands of Baidu, and when he looked back, the lotus was located in the lights!

In fact, although there are not many species in Wang Lian, there are really many stories about Wang Lian. After all, Wang Lian's origin is really small.

2. Plants with the same name as the Queen

Everyone may also notice that Wang Lian's belonging to Victoria, yes, the Queen Victoria that everyone thinks of. The reason why Wang Lian is called "Wang Lian" is probably in addition to being really big, and it is indeed a bit related to the queen.

In the 19th century, Britain was also known as the "Nose Empire", and the colonies were all over the world. Explorer Robert Hermann Schomburgk discovered a magical plant during the field inspection in British Guyana on New Year's Day in 1837. He recorded the scene at the time in his diary:

"Soon, we encountered our curious object-a plant wonders! All the disasters were forgotten. I feel that I am a botanist and I feel that we have received it. By six feet, it is like a tray with a light green side wide edge on it. Below is the bright dark red, just put it on the water: the lush flower is perfectly echoed with this wonderful leave Hundreds of consisting of petals from pure white to rosy and pink alternating petals. "

Discover Wang Lian's scene (picture source: reference [2])

Immediately, he sent the drawings of this plant to Britain, gave it to the Royal Society of Geography, and hoped that the Royal Geography Society could transfer it to the London Botanical Society. It was sent to the London Botanical Society, but no one expected that it also laid seeds for Wang Lian's controversy. Although the Royal Society of Geography is the sponsor of the Schomburgk adventure, because the name of Wang Lian involves the sponsorship of the subsequent royal associations, this has caused contradictions between different associations. Big dispute.

Discover Wang Lian's location (picture source: reference [2])

Although Schomburgk's original intention was to treat Wang Lian's name as a gift to Queen Victoria, two people at the time named Wang Lian. John Lindley, secretary of the British Botanist, Secretary of the London Horticultural Society, and Royal Geographical Society, named it Victoria Regia, and John Edward Gray, the first chairman of the London Botanical Society, named it Victoria Regina.

The two sides promoted their respective names in different communication channels. Therefore, both names began to spread, and no one was willing to accept the name of the other party. In the eyes, the winner of this "war" is Lindley.

Victoria Regia in the Goeldi Museum in Brazil (picture source: wikipedia)

In fact, Schomburgk was not the first person to discover Wang Lian. At the beginning of the 19th century, Bohemia's botanist Tadeá Haenke had found Wang Lian in the tributary of the Amazon River. In 1832, German botanist Eduard Friedrich Poeppig named Wang Lian to Euryale Amazonica, which is Amazon. In the principle of first -arriving, this kind of Wang Lian's scientific name was revised by Victoria Regia as Victoria Amazonica.

However, in that year, in addition to competing the right of competition, we were still trying to do another thing.

Third, the pioneer of modern greenhouse "Big Green Room" allows Wang Lian to bloom flowers in the UK

When Schomburgk introduced his discovery to everyone after returning from South America, his news caused a stir among gardener and the public. All kinds of newspapers are scrambling to tout Wang Lian. In more than ten years after 1837, the explorers have tried to bring Wang Lian's seed back to Britain for cultivation many times.

Wang Lian grew up in South America. The local climate was hot. Wanting to plant Wanglian in the UK is a challenge, let alone let Wang Lian bloom. Although the growth rate of Wang Lian in South America was fast, the fierce competition for the queen lasted for more than ten years. Until a gardener named Joseph Paxton joined the competition, he was the chief gardener of the Duke of Devin County, the sixth generation of Chazvos Manor, Derby County. The pioneer of modern greenhouses, the large greenhouse.

Joseph Paxton (Picture Source: Racingnelliebly.com))

On August 3, 1849, Paxton carefully took Amazon Wang Lian to Chazwos Manor carefully and planted it in the area that he prepared for it. Paxton built a 12 -foot (about 3.6 meter) heating pool in his greenhouse with 5 soils in it. He used his own waterwheel and coal -fired boiler to warm up. , Wet swamp environment.

Chazwart Great Temple (Picture Source: Wikipedia)

Wang Lian quickly grew at a surprising speed, as Schomburgk saw in Amazon's tributary. On November 2 that year, Wang Lian grew the first bud, and Paxton wrote to his employer to inform him of the good news. The news of flowering quickly spread, and the first flower was dedicated to Queen Victoria who was the same name as Wang Lian.

"At dusk, Queen Victoria arrived in Chazworth Manor. The large temperature room was illuminated by 14,000 oil lamps. Wang Lian's petals were expanded. The faint red halo became obvious. ","

Wang Lian Blossom Photos (Picture Source: Wikipedia)

To this day, Wang Lian has been introduced to botanical gardens around the world. As long as you want to see, tourists can see the shadow of this domineering plant at any time. But I do n’t know how many people, remember the story of this strange plant from distant South America?

Note: Latin in the text should be oblique

Produced: Popular Science China

Author: EVEE

Producer: China Science Popularization Expo

references:

Smith, L. T., Magdalena, C., Przelomska, N. A., Pérez-Escobar, O. A., MELGAR-Gómez, D. G., Beck, S., A. K. (2022).The British Journal for the History of Science, 47 (1), 67-94.

The China Science Popularization Expo is the Science Popular Science Platform of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is sponsored by the Computer Network Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Relying on the high -end scientific resources of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, it is committed to spreading cutting -edge scientific knowledge and providing fun science and education services.

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