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"Victoria Regia, named by Lindley after Queen Victoria, is the most magnificent of all known water lilies, and comes from a region in which it had been supposed that no Nymphæaceæ occurred. It was first discovered by the botanist Hænke in 1801; Bonbigny, in 1828, sent home specimens to Paris; others also subsequently saw it growing, but it excited no attention till in 1837, Sir Robert Schomburgk found it in the Berbice river in British Guiana. The rootstock is thick and fleshy, the leaf-stalks prickly, the leaf peltate, its margin circular, its diameter from 6 to 12 feet, the edge so turned up as to make the leaves floating in tranquil water look like a number of large trays. "—(Charles Leonard-Stuart, 1911)

Victoria Regia

"Victoria Regia, named by Lindley after Queen Victoria, is the most magnificent of all known water lilies,…