eBook The Flower of Empire: An Amazonian Water Lily, The Quest to Make it Bloom, and the World it Created download

This book kept me transfixed from the first page. The finding of this fabulous flower, the quest to bring it back alive and the desire to present it to the queen and the public!

That may seem a bit of a stretch, but Holway makes a lively case for this botanical colossus. This book kept me transfixed from the first page. The finding of this fabulous flower, the quest to bring it back alive and the desire to present it to the queen and the public! The author has a true gift of storytelling. She brings the reader along with the plant hunters into the wilds of South America.

The British Empire, later 19th century. The finding of this fabulous flower, the quest to bring it back alive and the desire to present it to the queen and the public!

The British Empire, later 19th century. Queen Victoria, the Rosebud of England (The Victoria and Albert Museum, London). The Victoria water lily in cultivation today (Kit Knotts & Victoria-Adventure). The Crystal Palace, erected for the Great Exhibition of 1851 (The Victoria and Albert Museum, London).

The Flower of Empire book. In The Flower of Empire, Tatiana Holway tells the story of this magnificent lily, revealing how it touched nearly every aspect of Victorian life, art, and culture

The Flower of Empire book. In The Flower of Empire, Tatiana Holway tells the story of this magnificent lily, revealing how it touched nearly every aspect of Victorian life, art, and culture. Holway's colorful narrative captures the sensation stirred by Victoria regia in England, particularly the intense race among prominent Britons to be the first to coax the flower to bloom.

In England, a horticultural nation with a mania for gardens and flowers, news of the discovery sparked a race to bring a live specimen back, and to bring it to bloom. In this extraordinary plant, named Victoria regia for the newly crowned queen, the flower-obsessed British had found their beau ideal.

ower created key aspects of the Victorian world. She does a good job of telling the. (albeit not entirely unfamiliar) tale of the European discovery of the gigantic water lily, with its massive blooms and lily pads that could support the weight of a child. But her. argument that the plant contributed to creating a world is largely based on Joseph.

The flower of empire. Dickens scholar Holway has assembled a terrific cast of characters, including the German Robert Schomburgk, hired by the Royal Geographic Society to survey the new colony of British Guiana and discoverer of the flower on the River Berbice in 1837; John Lindley, the botanical authority who classified the find as Victoria regia; and Sir Joseph Banks, the force behind the Royal Botanic Gardens.

In 1837, a German naturalist named Robert Schomburgk was charting the South American terrirtory of Guiana on behalf of the Royal Geographical Society. The flowers were dazzlingly white; its leaves were.

The Flower of Empire

The Flower of Empire. She charts the discovery and cultivation of the enormous tropical water lily, Victoria regia, from the chance happenings of plant hunting to its immense popularity in Victorian England.

In The Flower of Empire, Tatiana Holwa. more). The histories of the diverse cast of individuals responsible for discovering and cultivating the giant water lily are intricately interwoven with the other topics of the book mentioned above.