Her name is Victoria and she has just been born.
She is one of the spoiled girls in her home, located in a spoiled area of Madrid, between Paseo del Prado and Calle de Alfonso XII.
The news spread in the form of
during the early hours of Thursday on the phones of all those who were awaiting this arrival that had been kept waiting all week.
A photo that left several thinking: "Oops, it's not what I thought."
To be honest, babies are rarely precious when they are born.
Victoria has been affected by the storm and “a bit chuchurría” has come out, said her caregiver, but she has given her a massage and took the beautiful shape expected of her.
The one that has seen the light in the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid has been the Victoria flower 'Longwood Hybrid', a water lily that has flowered for the first time in this garden and that according to Tomás Escribano, an expert in this type of plants and donor of The Botanical collection places this institution among the most important in the world, those that play in the Victoria League 'Longwood Hybrid'.
An event that also comes to celebrate 265 years of this garden in October.
A life of two nights
But what is special about this plant?
Everything.
This would be a fairly tight answer, but vague.
From its flower, which is nocturnal, that is, it only opens at dawn and closes around eleven in the morning.
Luckily, the first of the Botanical has lasted a bit longer on its first day because it was cloudy.
Its life on the water is two days, well, nights.
The first is white and feminine, with an intense smell similar to that of pineapple that attracts the insects that will pollinate it to the nectar.
A baby who knows how to conquer the staff, in this case insects and humans who have been pending of this flowering.
The garden's social networks have managed to create interest by giving constant information about the state of the cocoon and its imminent opening and, in addition, they have published curious and interesting information about the rest of the water lilies that live with Victoria.
The smell is not the only weapon of seduction of this flower.
Another of its characteristics is thermogenesis or heat production, that is, its temperature is 10 degrees higher than ambient, which makes the diffusion of the aroma greater and attracts more insects.
It is like heating an essence, the smell spreads.
This morning has been the second and last night of this tropical flower.
It has reopened but now with male organs, stamens, and a pinkish hue.
The next thing will be to sink and continue its process in the water.
Like all water lilies, the seeds mature inside a kind of cocoon, which ends up exploding and expanding the seeds, each one with its aril (a
float
so that they do not sink).
But if the flower is exceptional, the leaves are not far behind, they can reach two meters in diameter, the record is documented at 2.78 meters.
Those in the garden are around the meter and each one that comes out is greater than the previous one.
The same thing happens with flowers, the first is not the most perfect, it has the value of being the first, but not the best.
The peculiar tray shape of the leaves is very characteristic, it is flat and can hold up to 70 kilos, a paradise for birds, insects and amphibians
There are currently more flower buds in the pond and Escribano is confident that if temperatures do not drop too low (the water was 18.5 degrees on Thursday morning) some more will bloom in the coming weeks.
The peculiar tray shape of the leaves is very characteristic, it is flat and can hold up to 70 kilos, a paradise for birds, insects and amphibians.
Although in this pond they are protected by a net, precisely so that the ducks that sometimes fly from the nearby Retiro park do not kill them.
And if the flat and circular beam of the leaf is striking for its flatness and its reddish edge, which prevents them from overlapping and removing the light from each other;
the underside is a festival in botanical terms with its structure of thick nerves full of spines that protect it from the herbivorous fish that inhabit the Amazon, the original area of the water lily father of this hybrid, Victoria amazónica.
The mother is known as Victoria Cruziana, a native of Argentina and Paraguay.
Tropical life (close to death) makes its way in this pool of the Botanical Garden.
Increasing temperatures helps.
The usual thing is that the warm water lilies are collected in November to protect them from the cold winter, but the flowering of the different species each year lasts longer.
Let's see this 2020.
