Wang Lian, a floating plant with strange flowers and leaves
Wang Lian: Is a collective name for the genus Wang Lily in the family Water Lily. It is a large, perennial or annual floating leaf herb with erect rhizomes and developed adventitious whisker roots, white. With its giant, peculiar disc-like leaves, it floats on the surface of the water, which is very spectacular, and is known for its delicate and varied colors and strong fragrance. In summer, it flowers, solitary, floating on the surface of the water, white at first, and turns crimson the next day and withers. It has the largest leaf leaves in the world's aquatic plants, with a diameter of more than 3 meters, a smooth leaf surface, and a leaf rim rolled up, like a large emerald green jade plate floating on the surface of the water; Because its leaf veins are different from the leaf vein structure of ordinary plants, it is rib-like and resembles an umbrella frame, so it has a lot of buoyancy, and can withstand up to 60 or 70 kilograms of objects without sinking and need to grow and develop in a high temperature, high humidity, and sunny environment. The suitable temperature for growth is 25-35 degrees Celsius, and when it is below 20 degrees, the plant will stop growing.
Wang Lian is the largest leaf plant among aquatic flowering plants, its primary leaves are needle-like, spear-shaped when growing to 2-3 pieces, spear-shaped when 4-5 leaves, oval to round when 6-7 leaves are fully unfolded, upturned to disc-shaped after 11 leaves, the leaf margin is upright, the leaf edge is round, like a disc floating on the water surface, the diameter can reach more than 2 meters, the leaf surface is smooth, the green is slightly reddish, wrinkled, the back is purple-red, the petiole is green, 2-4 meters long, there are many hard blades on the back of the leaf and petiole, and the leaf veins are radial. Wang Lian's huge leaves are not only eye-catching, but their load capacity is even more astonishing. A large blade can carry a weight of 70 kg, which is due to the fact that its blades and veins have many large cavities, which are filled with gas, so that the blades float on the surface of the water. The back of the leaf grows thick veins, plate-like bulges, crisscrossing to form a square grid of more than 10 cm high, which is conducive to maintaining leaf development and increasing the drainage and load force of the leaf.
The flowers of Wang Lian are large, solitary, 25-40 cm in diameter, with 4 green-brown sepals, ovate triangular in shape, and all of them have spines on the outside; The petals are numerous, inverted ovate, 10–22 cm long, with most stamens, flattened filaments, 8–10 mm long; Under the ovary grew dense thick thorns.
Wang Lian results around September, the berries are spherical in shape, the seeds are black, and when the fruit is ripe, it contains 300-500 seeds, up to 700. The seeds are the size of lotus seeds, rich in starch, edible, and called "water corn".
Victoria, who takes queen Victoria's name as her genus name, seems to have been born with the style of a king. That's because it occupies a huge area of water not only in the tropical waters of her native Americas, but also because it has the most beautiful and unique round leaves in the world. In many botanical gardens where wang lotus is planted, wang lian is often the focus of summer. Its foliage period can be extended from the end of May to mid-November, which can last for half a year. And its flowers bloom three times, the flowering period is generally three days, the color of each day is different, the buds stick out of the water when flowering, the flowers are separated in the evening of the first day, white and accompanied by fragrance, the next day becomes pink, the third day becomes purple red, and then closed and withers and sinks into the water, and the seeds mature in the water. Because of this peculiar property of Wang Lian, she is known as the "fickle goddess".