Lucas D. Alderson
The next day I came outside to carry out my daily pond observations. When I walked over to the pond I had placed the Euryale in, I couldn't believe my eyes! I had two surface leaves. Let me remind you that this pond is almost 2 feet deep. The pot was only about 4-5 inches tall so that left the second leaf at about 7 - 8 inches below the surface of the water. I was new to the hobby but this type of growth seemed bizarre. I was so amazed, I grabbed my camera and took a picture (above left).
The plant developed even further and grew to greater size. All throughout last year I monitered it, watching as every single leaf emerged from the underwater crown and worked its way up to the surface, always hoping that instead of a leaf, the next thing to come out of that crown would be a flower bud. Though I never had a single flower bud last year, I have better expectations for this year.
As you can see in the two photos above, the plant went through a humungous growth spurt. This lily is one of the biggest known to exist, only slightly outsized by the Victoria species. The picture on the right was taken a mear two months after I recieved the little plant I never imagined would become such a giant.
As Euryales are not winter hardy and do not produce tubers that can be brought inside to overwinter there, they must be grown new from seed each year. This upcomming year I hope to start my seeds quite a bit earlier than the seed which brought forth the plant I owned this year.