17 September 2024

Standing on a water lily


This old photo from the archives of the Missouri Botanical Garden depicted a young woman playing a violin while standing on a water lily.  Photographers of that era were capable of image manipulation, and its possible a support was placed under the lily pad.  But a recent project conducted by horticulturalists around the country demonstrated that the event was probably real.  


Botanical gardens across the world competed in a friendly fashion to see how much weight a giant Victoria water lily pad could support.  
Horticulturists in Denver then tallied the results and awarded first place to the five-foot Missouri water lily, which took on water once it shouldered 142.1 pounds.  Second place went to a Victoria lily at the Naples Botanical Garden in Florida for holding 135 pounds, while the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh took third place honors with a water lily that held 105.8 pounds.
The result would not come as a surprise to a jacana.

4 comments:

  1. And yet, also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqkM3V9K6zg

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  2. Yes, I think it's quite likely a support was used to make the first picture possible. A (small) child lying down on one of those pads is totally possible, as this spreads the weight more or less equally across the pad's surface. But standing upright on one causes all the person's weight to be concentrated in a small area.

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  3. Yeah. I am dubious. The weight in the newer picture seems pretty spread out as opposed to just the women standing in one spot.

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  4. The surface she is standing on also looks smoother than the surfaces of the surrounding water lilies.

    ReplyDelete

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