Vitoria Regia

The largest water lily in the world is the Vitória Régia. Its round leaves attain 2 m in diameter and have a pronounced up turned edge. When floating on the water it can sustain heavy weights, such as rabbit sized animals. When it blooms, its petals are white, often slight pink, with red rims.

A long time ago, there was a young girl who had been told by her father of an old belief that the moon was home to a fearsome but magnificent warrior-god. The girl was called Crystal.
As time passed her belief in the tale strengthened and she eventually fell in love with this mysterious warrior-god on the moon. Several boys attempted to court her, yet she felt them all unworthy of her affection. All of her family’s desperate attempts to marry her off to respectable young men failed.
With great patience, Crystal waited for the full moon to emerge, so that she could look up into the sky and stare in the face of her make-believe love. Several times she could have been seen running through the forest in the dead of night, arms outstretched as the moon shone at its fullest, catching its rays and pretending to embrace her warrior lover. Chasing moonbeams, however, proved futile and the great love of her life remained a distant dream.
Her parents, friends and relatives were worried about her. So many times they had tried to convince her that the passion she felt was merely an illusion, all in vain. The girl would never listen.
One clear night when a full moon shone in its entire splendor in a cloudless sky, the girl raced into the forest, filled with determination to at last embrace the moon-warrior, only to find herself standing before a lake that was crystal clear. In the water, she saw a brilliant reflection of the moon. “At last,” she thought to herself, “my beloved has come down to bathe in this pool.” Immediately she plunged into the lake to meet him. As she could not swim she drowned in the depths of the lake.
However, the warrior-on-the-moon was not just a dream; he did exist and he was aware of her agape love. He hoped to bring her back to life, though he did not have the power to do so. Instead, he transformed her body into a giant flower that reigns as the most marvelous among all aquatic plants. Crystal became the water lily, the Vitoria-regia, whose flower opens wide only at night, when the moon is full and its light shines brightly above the forest.