ABSTRACT
The River Drau in Austria meanders through the village of Lippitzbach in Carinthia that takes its name from a wild stream of the same name. In 1852, an exotic rarity came into flower, the “Victoria regia”. Anyone who has seen Victoria regia in real life in the tropics, in a tropical botanic garden, or in a tropical conservatory will probably never forget this extraordinary natural phenomenon. The 6.5-foot leaves and similarly gigantic ivory-shimmering flowers of this giant water lily are able to fascinate on account of their opulence and their colors, particularly as the flowers change from white to pink in the course of a single nigh. After about 1802, explorers occasionally brought pieces of news about the extraordinary water lily from South America to Europe. They had travelled independently of each other and followed different routes, depending on their employers, when they finally arrived in the European capitals such as Madrid, Paris, or London.
