Why would someone steal the world's rarest water lily? That was the question asked by Sam Knight in an article published in the British newspaper The Guardian recently. He wrote the lengthy article after the smallest water lily in the world, the Nymphaea thermarum, whose white flowers measure less than 1cm across, was stolen from — of all places — the Princess of Wales Conservatory in the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London.
Too big: The giant Victoria lily. The thief at Kew Gardens had an eye only on the smallest water lily in the world.
Nymphaea thermarum is believed to be on the verge of extinction. Discovered in 1987 by German botanist Eberhard Fischer, it has not been seen in its natural habitat, a thermal hot spring in Rwanda, since 2008. It was only successfully grown from seed in 2009, after the last living specimen, which had been in a botanical garden in Germany, had died. Kew possessed virtually the entire world's population of the precious plant, one of 100 species that now survive only in botanic gardens.
Apart from its size, Nymphaea thermarum is unique in that it grows in damp mud; all other water lilies grow in water. Nick Johnson, the 43-year-old manager of the conservatory, knew the risks of putting the delicate species on public view, but he thought it was safe to put 24 specimens on display near the foot of a concrete bridge. After all, the plants were in a relatively inaccessible location; Knight reported that one would have to crawl along a railway sleeper, push his way through a surrounding foliage of anthuriums, and then balance precariously over the mud to steal one.
As it happened, last January someone had the audacity to scramble down there to steal one of the plants in full view of the other visitors.
Thirsty: Water lilies are grown in water. Apart from its size, the water lily stolen at Kew is unique in that it grows in mud.
In a nearby pond was the world's biggest water lily, Victoria amazonica. First discovered in Guyana in 1837 and subsequently named in honour of Queen Victoria, it has leaves that measure over 2m in diameter. Its large, fragrant flowers change in colour as they mature, from white to pink and finally purplish red. But the thief had an eye only on the miniature species, which was not even blooming when it was stolen.
Why would someone steal the world's rarest water lily? Because there is a market for it, that's why. Serious collectors are willing to pay a fortune for the distinction of owning the rarest plant in the world. In 2000, a Malaysian paid half a million baht for an aglaonema hybrid, developed by a Thai breeder, which had completely red leaves. Until then, aglaonema only had dark green leaves, which was why it was called keo muen pi, literally meaning evergreen, in Thai. Today, that name no longer holds as hybrids in many different colours and colour combinations have been developed, to the extent that the original green variety has become almost a rarity.
Even if the water lily was not sold to a collector and the thief decided to propagate it himself, he would still make a fortune. Producing 500,000 plants by tissue culture and selling them throughout the world through the internet for 1,000 baht each, he could earn 500 million baht, and that's only a conservative estimate. Carlos Magdalena, the Kew horticultural scientist who successfully grew Nymphaea thermarum from seed, believed it would do especially well in Japan, where gardeners are fond of miniatures.
If it fell into the hands of a hybridiser, it could be crossed with other water lilies to produce new varieties. In a few years, gardening enthusiasts would be growing miniature water lilies with pink, purple, yellow, blue and violet flowers instead of white.
Colourful: Water lily hybrids developed in Thailand.
Ironically, the theft happened while the conservatory was being prepared for its annual orchid festival, which was themed "Plant Hunters". It evoked the Victorian era when British botanists and plant collectors spent years on end scouring remote, unexplored parts of the world in search of new species. A royal pleasure ground before it was transformed into a research-oriented botanical garden, Kew housed plants collected from all over the world by these daring plant hunters.
Descendants of these plants have made their way to Thailand to grace our gardens. Thanks to plant hunters, both ancient and modern, we enjoy a diversity of flowering plants, shrubs and trees with foreign origins. Using these as mother plants, Thai breeders have developed new cultivars — including water lilies, albeit not miniatures, in many different colours — which you will find at plant fairs currently being held at Bangkok's Suan Luang Rama IX Park and Kasetsart University's Kamphaeng Saen campus. Both fairs end on Wednesday. n
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