ST. LOUIS — A worldwide botanical garden contest officially crowned Missouri as the winner on Tuesday.
The results of the international "water lily weigh-off" found the Missouri Botanical Garden's lily pads held the most weight of any lily pads in the world.
The garden's initial participation in the weigh-off went so much better than expected that garden officials ran out of weights to put on the lily without it sinking. After getting more weights, the lily went on to hold a whopping 142.1 pounds.
"One of the largest water lilies in the world, the lily pads of Victoria water lilies can grow as large as 6 feet across," garden officials told 5 On Your Side. "The Garden has had Victoria waterlilies in its collection since 1894."
The Naples Botanical Garden's water lily in Florida came second with a lift of 135 pounds and the Royal Botanic Garden's water lily in Edinburgh, Scottland, came third with a lift of 105.8 pounds.
MoBOT credits its super-strong lily pads mainly to Missouri's climate, 2024's long and hot summer and the garden's heated water lily pool.
"Why we have such awesome lilies is that our pool is heated, we have a little bit of a warmer climate … We're able to start them a little earlier and we've had a really long, hot summer, so the water lilies have been beefing up and prepping for this all year," MoBOT water lily horticulturists Claire Krofft and Greta Berg said in the garden's weigh-off submission post on Instagram.