Happiness is a new plant

Nothing makes a botanist happier than a new plant particularly if it is something a bit unusual, a bit out of the ordinary, a bit rare.  Well, looky, looky what TPP has gotten as a gift from a colleague, a dwarf, African water lily, Nymphaea thermarum.  Here's a link to the Kew Gardens web page about this plant. It's pretty new to science so it's great fun to have such a plant, but it's extinct in the wild.  This is such a great plant, the world's smallest waterlily, and the only one to grow on the surface of hot mud rather than in water. TPP likes examining how unusual plants grow, and to see if they have any particular adaptations for their particular way of life. You only find out about such things by watching them grow and reproduce very carefully.