PLANCHON, JULES EMILE and Louis VAN HOUTTE

La Victoria Regia, au point de vue horticole et botanique, avec des observations sur la structure et les affinités des Nymphéacées. Ghent: C. Arnoot-Braeckman for L. van Houtte and others, 1850—1851



Folio (13 ¾ x 10 in.; 350 x 259 mm). Half-title, 7 lithographed plates (5 hand-colored, 2 tinted) of which 6 signed by L. Stroobant, 8 uncolored lithographed text illustrations (7 full-page); occasional light marginal spotting or soiling. Publisher’s printed tan wrappers; some soiling, backstrip frayed, contemporary manuscript label affixed to backstrip. Red cloth folding case.

Stafleu TL2 8009

A scarce large-paper offprint from La Flore des Serres et des Jardins de l’Europe,  recording the first flowering in Belgium of the mammoth water lily from Central and South America, the Victoria regia. European naturalists are reported to have first seen the lily as early as 1801. It was not until 1837 that a specimen was taken by Sir Robert Schomburgk in British Guiana and named for Queen Victoria in honor of the first year of her reign.  

The plant was grown from seeds (taken from the specimen at Kew) by Joseph Paxton in the Duke of Devonshire’s garden at Chatsworth in February 1850. It bloomed in September, 1850. The plant’s immense size—leaves up to six feet wide and strong enough to hold an adult without sinking—fascinated the Victorians.

After an expedition in Brazil Louis Van Houtte (1810-1876) established a nursery trade at Ghent in 1839. He constructed a large circular tank within a heated greenhouse for the purpose of cultivating the Victoria regia. Seeds from the Chatsworth Victoria regia arrived at Ghent in May, 1850. Recruited for the enterprise was the French botanist Jules Emile Planchon, who had been William Jackson Hooker's assistant at Kew (1844–1848). Flowers reached maturity by mid-October 1850, representing the first blooming of the plant on the mainland of Europe.   

The first of the monographs on the specimen was John Lindley’s Victoria regia (London, 1837) containing one plate and limited to an edition of 25. Other monographs include Description of the Victoria Regia (London, 1847) by Sir Willam Jackson Hooker and Walter Fitch. Hooker’s Victoria Regia; or Illustrations of the Royal Water-Lily was published in 1851 with plates considerably larger than those in the 1847 edition. Plates in the Planchon-Van Houtte collaboration include three hand-colored studies of stages of the opening of the flowers, a hand-colored plate showing details of various parts of the plant and flower, a hand-colored view of the interior of the greenhouse, and two tinted views of the various greenhouses at Van Houtte’s nursery.