Victoria colombiana named as new giant waterlily species in Colombia

Victoria colombiana, a giant waterlily from Colombia’s upper Orinoco watershed, has been formally described in a taxonomic paper published on 7 October 2026. The finding, reported by the Guardian on 9 October, gives a scientific name to a plant that researchers traced from an Instagram photograph to lakes in the Inírida region. The team estimates that 30 to 50 plants remain in the wild, making further searches and a formal conservation assessment pressing next steps.

The study, published in Phytotaxa, identifies V. colombiana through comparisons of plant form and maps of where Victoria populations occur in South America’s river drainages. It also recognizes another species, Victoria mattogrossensis, in the Pantanal. The authors’ account places the Colombian species in the upper Orinoco drainage, rather than treating the plants photographed there as the more familiar V. amazonica.

How the Inírida waterlily was traced

Carlos Magdalena of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, first noticed photographs posted by Jeremiah Harris on Instagram about five years before Kew’s October 2026 account, according to the institution. Harris, who runs a carnivorous plant nursery in the United States, had identified the lilies as V. amazonica. Magdalena suspected they could be different because the natural range of known Victoria waterlilies did not extend to the Inírida River in Colombia’s Guainía department.

Magdalena examined satellite imagery of the river and nearby lakes and found waterlily pads visible in the images, Kew says. Harris confirmed that plants mapped from above matched those shown to him by local guides. The published study says the Colombian species was first noticed in an Instagram post and can be seen from space; those observations helped locate plants, while the later fieldwork and taxonomic comparisons established what they were.

During the five-day expedition, the team initially found two plants that were not flowering, Kew reports. That made it harder to obtain a fertile herbarium specimen for comparison. With the return flight approaching, boatman Gustavo Melo guided the group to another lake, where they found five more plants, including one in flower. The expedition documented seven plants across the two lakes. Specimens were deposited at Bogotá’s botanical garden herbarium, and plant taxonomist Maarten Christenhusz joined the taxonomic work.

What the study says about river habitats

The Phytotaxa paper’s abstract says Victoria seeds have no known animal dispersers and are sensitive to drying. Rivers and floodwaters are therefore their main dispersal routes, the authors conclude. They propose that isolation between river basins, together with changes in river courses over time, contributed to the genus’s diversification. Those findings help explain why mapping drainage systems mattered when comparing populations from Colombia’s upper Orinoco with plants elsewhere in South America.

The study lists contributors affiliated with Kew, Bogotá’s botanical garden, DreamGIS and Indigenous reserves in Colombia, as well as Harris. Kew describes the result as a combination of local knowledge, horticultural expertise, social media, satellite imagery and field observation. Magdalena told the Guardian that finding the plants was ‘jaw dropping’, while stressing that more remains to be discovered and protected.

What is known about conservation

The team’s estimate of 30 to 50 wild V. colombiana plants is preliminary, not a completed census. Kew says later GIS analysis identified a third lake with the lily. Comparisons of satellite images suggest more plants might be visible during drier seasons, although reaching those places on foot is harder then. Further field searches could therefore change the known count and distribution.

Researchers are working toward an official IUCN Red List assessment, according to Kew and the Guardian. Critically endangered is the assessment they intend to pursue; it is not yet an official designation. Kew also describes a possible naturalized population in a more accessible lake within Indigenous territory, which could provide another safeguarded population and support local ecotourism. That proposal has not been completed.

The researchers also hope to collect seeds for cultivation and study in Bogotá. Kew says the plant might eventually be grown at Kew Gardens if those efforts succeed. For now, the documented field specimens and the published species description establish the plant’s identity, while its full wild population, formal threat status and proposed protection measures remain open questions.