Magdalena examining a giant Amazon water lily at the Princess of Wales Conservatory at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London. — ©2024 The New York Times Company
CARLOS Magdalena (pic), a research horticulturalist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London, has ventured into extraordinary situations to rescue rare plants.
In Australia, he searched for plants by helicopter and waded through crocodile-infested waters. In Colombia, he braved piranha-filled rivers, jumping between planks in darkness at 4am to reach a floating pontoon.
“It’s not that I am that daring,” Magdalena said. “These situations just arise, and they are not like Superman extreme. Sometimes it’s more Peter Sellers than Indiana Jones.”
These daring feats earned him the nickname “the plant messiah”, a title first given by a Spanish newspaper in 2010 and later popularised by David Attenborough, the British doyen of nature documentaries.
“Imagine what happens when the God calls you the messiah,” Magdalena remarked, reflecting on Attenborough’s endorsement.
Magdalena’s passion for plants began at a young age, growing lilies on his parents’ farm in Spain.
At Kew Gardens, he’s known for his unconventional methods, which have saved several species from extinction.
One of his most notable successes is the pygmy lily, Nymphaea thermarum, the world’s smallest water lily.
When the plant was stolen from Kew Gardens in 2014, Magdalena used media appearances to raise awareness about its rarity.
“Plants don’t speak. Plants don’t cry. Plants don’t bleed,” he said. “So I’ve decided to speak for them.”
Another highlight of his career involved saving the café marron, Ramosmania rodriguesi, a plant thought extinct until a schoolboy discovered a specimen.
Magdalena spent five months studying the plant and, after 200 attempts at pollination, succeeded in producing seeds, leading to its reintroduction in Mauritius.
“Carlos delivers,” said Dr Alex Monro, a lead scientist at Kew Gardens.
While his initial renown may be thanks to mini lilies, what might be his biggest accomplishment falls on the other end of the size spectrum.
Giant water lilies, of the genus Victoria, are a major part of Kew Gardens’ summer displays, displayed in a dedicated green house.
In 2007, Magdalena’s low-paid job included caring for the only two known species — Victoria amazonica and Victoria cruziana.
The plants were named after a newly crowned Queen Victoria, to secure her patronage for Kew Gardens.
As he tended to the enormous plants, Magdalena became increasingly obsessed and would spend nights researching them online, which is where he stumbled upon a photo of the strangest Victoria leaf he had ever seen and, suspecting it was an unknown species, had to learn more.
He contacted the photo’s owner, who had found this anomalously enormous lily in the Amazonian ponds of the Beni region of northern Bolivia and had transplanted cuttings from it to a human-made pond in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
A few years later, Magdalena found himself in Bolivia, teaching a local community how to grow Brazil nuts more effectively.
He took a couple days off, ventured to the man’s pond to see the mysterious, humongous lilies for himself and persuaded the owner, with an assist from the Santa Cruz Botanical Garden, to donate a few seeds to Kew Gardens.
Back in London, as the Bolivian seeds started growing with leaves and flowers that looked different from what he was used to, he began to strongly suspect he was looking at a third, unnamed species of Victoria.
He proceeded carefully in his investigation, keenly aware it was unusual in the field of botanical science that “a gardener like me”, as he said, might help identify a new species.
But his observations ultimately convinced him, and the scientific community agreed.
On July 4, 2022, Kew Gardens announced the discovery of a third Victoria lily, naming it Victoria boliviana Magdalena & LT Sm, the second name recognising the contribution of Lucy T. Smith, a botanist and illustrator at the gardens who had shared his conviction this was a new species.
Although the “plant messiah” moniker had originally bothered Magdalena as pretentious, he has since embraced it – “It’s just such a good handle” – using it as the title of a book.
“In Spain, the messiah is like being Jesus, which I am not,” he said. “For Anglos, it’s more like someone with a mission, someone who has things to say in the fight for a cause.” — ©2024 The New York Times Company
