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The Victoria House

The Victoria House is a veritable time capsule from the 1800s. At the time, most European botanical gardens wanted to grow and show the gigantic water lily from the Amazon. This was long before ordinary people had the opportunity to travel and experience exotic flowers in their natural setting – or see them on TV. The Victoria House here in our botanical garden opened in 1876. 

In the central area, you will find the pool with water lilies. We cultivate the species Victoria cruziana or hybrids between it and Victoria amazonica. If you are lucky, you may also experience lotus in bloom. Otherwise, the room mainly consists of useful plants from tropical regions, where the climate is warm and humid. You know them from cooking and eating, but you may not know what the plants ginger, coffee, and cinnamon look like in nature.

The room on the right when you enter is dedicated to plants from subtropical regions. Some shed leaves when it is dry, and some survive as bulbs underground. Botanists at the Natural History Museum work on describing and mapping the flora in Eastern and Southern Africa. Many new species have been described. Some are endangered and may only exist in cultivation here at the museum. In this room, we cultivate some of them.

The room on the left showcases a selection of plant life in the canopies of the rainforest, in addition to carnivorous plants along one wall. Plants that live in the canopy are called epiphytes. Many of them are orchids or related to pineapples.

Queen Victoria

The queen of water lilies The Victoria water lily is named after Queen Victoria. The species Victoria amazonica grows in shallow water in quiet backwaters in the Amazon. It is one of the world's fastest-growing plants. A leaf can increase its diameter by 35 cm in a day and can support the weight of a child. The flower only opens for two nights. The first night it is female, the next it is male. There are three species of Victoria water lilies, Victoria cruziana from Paraguay, V. amazonica, formerly known as V. regia, and V. boliviana. The latter is native to Bolivia, where it grows in wetlands connected to the Amazon. The species was first described in 2022. The leaves can reach a width of up to 3.2 meters and are the largest in the genus. It is too large to be cultivated here.

The Norwegian author Johan Borgen (1902-1979) wrote the short story "Victoria Regia" (1954), in which parts of the plot take place in our greenhouse.

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