Dwarf Water lily at Bristol University Botanical Gardens

I revisited the Bristol University Botanical Gardens in the hopes of getting a photo of the Datura that I forgot to photograph last time I was there. Unfortunately I could not find it but was informed that in any case the flowers had gone to seed.
On the other hand I did get to see these lovely Miniature Water lilies. I had some miniature ones in Australia when I was up in Townsville. I had them in my goldfish bowl. Those were minuscule compared to these.

Nymphaea 'Pygmaea Helvola'at the University of Bristol Botanical Gardens

Nymphaea 'Pygmaea Helvola'at the University of Bristol Botanical Gardens

Nymphaea 'Pygmaea Helvola'at the University of Bristol Botanical Gardens

Nymphaea 'Pygmaea Helvola'at the University of Bristol Botanical Gardens

Scientific Name: Nymphaea 'Pygmaea Helvola'

Common names: Minature Water lily, Hardy Water lily (English) ;

Taxonomic hierarchy: 

Kingdom: Plantae - Plants

Subkingdom: Viridaeplantae – Green plants

Infrakingdom: Streptophyta – Land plants

Division: Tracheophyta – Vascular plants

Subdivision: Spermatophytina – Spermatophytes (seed plants)

Infradivision: Angiospermae – Angiosperms (flowering plants)

Class: Magnoliopsida –

Superorder: Nymphaeanae –

Order: Nypmhaeales –

Family: Nymphaceae – Water lilies (English)

Genus: Nymphaea – 

Species: Nymphaea 'Pygmaea Helvola' – Minature Water lily,Hardy Water lily (English);

Notes: 

• I am using the taxonomical classification system used by ITIS (Intergrated Taxonomic Information System). I have decided to use this system in order to avoid confusion as well as because it offers a comprehensive hierarchy from kingdom right through to subspecies whereas other sources only go as far as order or  provide the names of some of the higher taxonomical ranks but only indicate "unclassified" rather than providing the rank.
• When and where possible I will endeavour to include alternatives classifications although  I may limit this to occasions where an opportunity arises to discuss the reason for the different classifications.
• Taxonomical data used in this post was retrieved [June 15 2014], from the Integrated Taxonomic Information System on-line database, http://www.itis.gov.

References:


On-line sources:

• Royal Horticultural Society: Entry for Nymphaea 'Pygmaea Helvola'
• Official Website of the: Bristol University Botanical Gardens
• Missouri Botanical gardens: Entry for Nymphaea 'Pygmaea Helvola'
• Integrated Taxonomic Information System on-line database: Entry for Nymphaea
• Wikipedia: Entry for Water Lilies
• Wikipedia: Entry for Nymphaeaceae

Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters Blog by Vincent Albert Vermeulen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

My other blogs

· Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters (on plants, animals as well as gardening, conservation and environmental matters): http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.com/
· The Blood of Souls (language, translation and etymology) : http://thebloodofsouls.blogspot.com/
· Whiskers on Kittens (Life with Kittens and Cats in general) : http://whiskersonkittens-vincent.blogspot.com/

Giant Water lilies at the Meise Botanical Gardens

One of the things that I had been really looking forward to when I planned my visit to the Meise Botanical Gardens was seeing the Giant Water lilies, Nymphaea gigantea and Santa Cruz Waterlilies, Victoria cruziana. Unfortunately the Santa Cruz Water lilies were not in flower and the Giant Water lilies appeared to have just finished flowering and the remaining flower-heads were looking rather dilapidated.

Victoria cruziana and Nymphaea gigantea in the Victoria House of the Miese Botanical Garden Plant Palace

Victoria cruziana and Nymphaea gigantea in the Victoria House of the Miese Botanical Garden Plant Palace

 Victoria cruziana was discovered in Bolivia by French Naturalist Alcide d'Orbigny during one of his expeditions in the region. The species is named after Andrés de Santa Cruz who had sponsored the expedition by Alcide's brother Charles Henry Dessalines d'Orbigny a botanist and geologist.
Santa Cruz was President of Peru and Boliva and was Supreme Protector of the Peru-Bolivian Confederation. It's more well known relative is Victoria amazonica which was originally called Victoria regina in honour of Queen Victoria although the name was changed to that of the Amazon where it is found in shallow waters of the Amazon Basin. The Genus Victoria is was also named in honour of Queen Victoria.
Nymphaea gigantea on the other hand is native to Australia and New Guinea.

Nymphaea gigantea in the Victoria House of the Miese Botanical Garden Plant Palace

Scientific Name: Nymphaea gigantea

Common names: Water lilies (English); Nénuphar d'ustralie (French); Australische waterlelie (Dutch)

Victoria cruziana in the Victoria House of the Miese Botanical Garden Plant Palace

Scientific Name: Victoria cruziana

Common names: Santa Cruz Water lily, Water platter, yrupe (English); Nénuphar géant (French); Reuzenwaterlelie (Dutch)

Taxonomic hierarchy: 

Kingdom: Plantae - Plants

Subkingdom: Viridaeplantae – Green plants

Infrakingdom: Streptophyta – Land plants

Division: Tracheophyta – Vascular plants

Subdivision: Spermatophytina – Spermatophytes (seed plants)

Infradivision: Angiospermae – Angiosperms (flowering plants)

Class: Magnoliopsida –

Superorder: Nymphaeanae –

Order: Nypmhaeales –

Family: Nymphaceae – Water lilies (English)

Genus: Nymphaea – 

Species: Nymphaea gigantea – 

Genus: Victoria – 

Species: Victoria cruziana – 

Notes: 

• I am using the taxonomical classification system used by ITIS (Intergrated Taxonomic Information System). I have decided to use this system in order to avoid confusion as well as because it offers a comprehensive hierarchy from kingdom right through to subspecies whereas other sources only go as far as order or  provide the names of some of the higher taxonomical ranks but only indicate "unclassified" rather than providing the rank.
• When and where possible I will endeavour to include alternatives classifications although  I may limit this to occasions where an opportunity arises to discuss the reason for the different classifications.
• Taxonomical data used in this post was retrieved [June 15 2014], from the Integrated Taxonomic Information System on-line database, http://www.itis.gov.

References:

Books:


On-line sources:

• Royal Horticultural Society: Entry for Water lilies
• Official Website of the: Meise Botanical Gardens
• Integrated Taxonomic Information System on-line database: Entry for Nymphaea
• Wikipedia: Entry for Water Lilies
• Wikipedia: Entry for Nymphaeaceae 
• Wikipedia: Entry for Victoria (plant)
• Wikipedia: Entry for Victoria amazonica
• Wikipedia: Entry for Victoria cruziana
• Wikipedia: Entry for Nympahaea gigantea
• Wikipedia: Entry for Alcide d'Orbigny
• Wikipedia: Entry for Andrés de Santa Cruz
• Wikipedia: Entry for Charles Henry Dessalines d'Orbigny

Further reading:

• Caryologia Vol 59 No. 1 25-30 (2006) PDF of article: Nuclear DNA C-values in 12 species of Nymphaeales
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U S A. May 25, 2004; 101(21): 8056–8060 Article by Gandolfo M.A., Nixon K.C. and Crepet W. L. : Cretaeous flowers of Nymphaeacea and implications for complex insect entrapment pollination mechanisms in early Angiosperms.

Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters Blog by Vincent Albert Vermeulen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

My other blogs

· Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters (on plants, animals as well as gardening, conservation and environmental matters): http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.com/
· The Blood of Souls (language, translation and etymology) : http://thebloodofsouls.blogspot.com/
· Whiskers on Kittens (Life with Kittens and Cats in general) : http://whiskersonkittens-vincent.blogspot.com/

More Nymphaea at the Meise Botanical Gardens

The pond in the Victoria House is rather large as you can see. This enables it to contain several species of Nympheae as well as to accommodate at least two species of Victoria not to mention a host of other water plants. There appeared to be three Nymphaea although I may have missed some which were not flowering or looked like the ones I was able to get close enough to or at least zoom in on the name tags to see them. As it is two of them look very similar and it is only  when you look at them that you can see that there is a slight difference. But if they are in the middle of the pond ... several meters away ... well ... it is not as evident. You can judge for yourself from the photos below.

Nymphaea "Director G. T. Moore"

Nymphaea "Director G. T. Moore"

Note the similarity between Nymphaea "Director G. T. Moore" and Nympheae caerulea. Note however that part of the reason that the Nymphaea "Director G. T. Moore" looks a lot darker is because the Nympheae caerulea were in direct sunlight. To me it looks like the Nympheae caerulea has many more stamens. The problem is I still have not been able to figure out of Nymphaea "Director G. T. Moore" is an actual species or a cultivar or hybrid perhaps.

Nympheae caerulea

Nympheae caerulea

With Nympheae"General Pershing" on the other hand there is no difficulty in seeing that it is obviously a completely different plant although as with Nympheae"General Pershing" I am not sure if this is a species, cultivar or hybrid. To me it seems that whenever a name is in quotation marks it means that it is a hybrid. I could be wrong.
I will keep looking and when I find out or if someone writes in and enlightens me I will update the post.

Nympheae"General Pershing"

Nympheae"General Pershing"

Genus Name: Nymphaea

Common names: Water lilies (English) ;

Taxonomic hierarchy: 

Kingdom: Plantae - Plants

Subkingdom: Viridaeplantae – Green plants

Infrakingdom: Streptophyta – Land plants

Division: Tracheophyta – Vascular plants

Subdivision: Spermatophytina – Spermatophytes (seed plants)

Infradivision: Angiospermae – Angiosperms (flowering plants)

Class: Magnoliopsida –

Superorder: Nymphaeanae –

Order: Nypmhaeales –

Family: Nymphaceae – Water lilies (English)

Genus: Nymphaea – 

Species: Nymphaea 'Director G. T. Moore' – 

Species: Nymphaea caerulea – 
Species: Nymphaea 'General Perishing' – Blue Egyptian Water lily, Sacred Blue Egyptian Water lily (English); Lotus bleu d'Egypte (French); Egyptiche blauwe lotus (Dutch)

Notes: 

• I am using the taxonomical classification system used by ITIS (Intergrated Taxonomic Information System). I have decided to use this system in order to avoid confusion as well as because it offers a comprehensive hierarchy from kingdom right through to subspecies whereas other sources only go as far as order or  provide the names of some of the higher taxonomical ranks but only indicate "unclassified" rather than providing the rank.
• When and where possible I will endeavour to include alternatives classifications although  I may limit this to occasions where an opportunity arises to discuss the reason for the different classifications.
• Taxonomical data used in this post was retrieved [June 15 2014], from the Integrated Taxonomic Information System on-line database, http://www.itis.gov.

References:


On-line sources:

• Royal Horticultural Society: Entry for Water lilies
• Official Website of the: Meise Botanical Gardens
• Integrated Taxonomic Information System on-line database: Entry for Nymphaea
• Wikipedia: Entry for Water Lilies
• Wikipedia: Entry for Nymphaeaceae

Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters Blog by Vincent Albert Vermeulen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

My other blogs

· Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters (on plants, animals as well as gardening, conservation and environmental matters): http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.com/
· The Blood of Souls (language, translation and etymology) : http://thebloodofsouls.blogspot.com/
· Whiskers on Kittens (Life with Kittens and Cats in general) : http://whiskersonkittens-vincent.blogspot.com/