Exotic Beauty (35) : Australian water lily

Exotic Beauty (35) : Australian water lily

The past years I made several visits to the conservatories of the National Botanic Garden of Belgium where 10.000 (!) plant and tree species originating from the tropics and the subtropics are growing in the greenhouses over there.

Thanks to the warm and moist climate in the conservatories and the intensive maintenance, it’s really amazing what an immense great variety of exotic flowers from all over the world can be seen there, even in the cold winter season !
Flowers whose natural habitat is situated in the rainforest, the mountain forest, isolated islands, deserts, etc……. Places that most of us will never or seldom visit.
Some of the flowers are very rare, extremely colourful or specially shaped.
Others were introduced in Europe by men and became a cultivated species or an ornamental houseplant.

I selected the –to my personal taste- most beautiful flowers that I saw there and made a series of them.

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Dutch name : Australische waterlelie
German name : Australische Seerose
Latin name : Nymphaea gigantea

Country of origin : Australia, New Guinea

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Almost every part of the plant is edible but I would not dare to eat such a beauty…….