New water lily variety cultivated in SW China's Yunnan

The Victoria ‘Dreamer,’ a new species of Victoria water lily cultivated in southwest China's Yunnan province, was recently approved by an international authority as a new variety.

Photo shows the Victoria ‘Dreamer,’ a new water lily species cultivated in southwest China's Yunnan province. (Photo/Yunnan Daily)

The Victoria ‘Dreamer,’ which was bred by senior experimentalist Wu Fuchuan and engineer Liu Meng with the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), is the first water lily cultivar certified by an international authority.

The cultivation of this new variety started in 2018. Seeds of the Victoria amazonica were utilized for the process of inducing mutations.

The leaves of this new variety are copper on both sides. When temperatures are low during the wintertime, the flower’s color will change slowly into red, with a beautiful bichromatic transition able to be observed.