A Deep Dive into the Fascinating World of Waterlilies

August is the peak of waterlily bloom at the Naples Botanical Garden, and each year, the last two days of August are dedicated to a festival celebrating everything waterlilies! The genus name, Nymphaea, comes from the Greek words for “goddess of springs,” or water nymphs. Ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, and even modern-day Asian culture have long regarded the waterlily as a sacred symbol. In Buddhism and Hinduism, the waterlily flower symbolizes resurrection.

The French impressionist artist Claude Monet is known for his series of 250 paintings called “The Water Lilies” depicting the waterlily garden at his home in Giverny. Artists and waterlilies seem to go hand in hand. The Garden is a popular inspirational haven for ‘en plein air’ landscape artists and photographers trying to capture the essence of the blooming waterlilies and their interplay with light and the reflection of the water. A search on words describing waterlilies comes up with 99, the most common being fragrant, elegant, serene, floating, ethereal, unique, stunning, and fascinating.

The Naples Botanical Garden curates a growing collection of waterlilies with nearly 300 diverse specimens which are on display throughout their many aquatic gardens. For the last weekend in August, the Garden is buzzing with how to create a container waterlily garden, art exhibits, tours, plant sale, and a display of the 2025 Waterlily photo competition with the winning photographs.

The Victoria Amazonica Waterlily is unique to the Garden’s collection and it is also considered to be the world’s largest waterlily. Everything about the Amazonica is impressive. It has an enormous circular platter-like leaf that can grow as wide as 10 feet across and has been known to carry the weight of an adult. The edges of the leaves are upturned, and according to Matt Herrman, the Garden’s Curator of Special Collections, “The underside is layered with sharp spines and even the stem of the flower is protected with spines.”

It’s not just the size that sets the Amazonica Waterlily apart but its blooming cycle is distinct in the plant world. Their flower opens at night and according to waterlily experts, on the first evening, the flower is a female – pure, white, and fragrant, sort of a ripe pineapple, and pollinators go crazy. By the second night, it transforms into a vivid pink male flower, trapping and dusting pollinators with pollen before releasing them. The third night, its final encore, the flower disappears back beneath the water.

In its third year, a Worldwide Waterlily Weigh Off Competition, led by Denver Botanical Garden, challenged a list of participating public gardens and zoos around the world to see how much weight their Victoria waterlily platters can hold. It is held in mid-August, and for 2025, they had over 40 participants across eight countries. In 2024, the first-place winner was the Missouri Botanical Garden with their platter holding a whopping 142.1 pounds before it started to sink. The Naples Botanical Garden's waterlily came in second with a lift of 135 pounds!

The challenge ran from August 18 to 24, and on the 28th, a winner was announced: Bok Tower Garden from Florida, at a CRAZY total weight of 183 pounds; in second place from Missouri Botanical Garden with an impressive weight of 182 pounds! This social media competition had a playful approach to educate the public about the fascinating world of waterlilies. According to Matt Herrman of the Naples Botanical Garden, “This year, we had a 'lightweight hybrid’ and it was a fighter to the very end.”

According to experts, the secret of what makes the leaf of a Victoria Amazonica Waterlily the strongest in the world lies in the unique network of hollow veins along the bottom of the leaf that are filled with air to support buoyancy. The upside of the leaf has a waxy, quilt-like pattern that helps repel water.