'Most of the city is evacuating': Gridlock on Alberta highway after evacuation order in Fort McMurray
Four Fort McMurray neighbourhoods were ordered to evacuate on Tuesday as a wildfire gets closer to the city.
An enormous waterlily in London's Royal Botanic Gardens has been discovered to belong to an entirely new species, after 177 years in the gardens' herbarium.
Victoria boliviana is the world's biggest known waterlily species, with leaves growing to nearly 10 feet wide in the wild, according to a press release from the gardens in Kew, west London. The largest specimen of the species can be found in La Rinconada Gardens in Bolivia, with leaves of up to 10.5 feet in width.
The leaf of the giant waterlily, which belongs to one of three species in the Victoria genus, can support a weight of at least 176 pounds.
"Having this new data for Victoria and identifying a new species in the genus is an incredible achievement in botany — properly identifying and documenting plant diversity is crucial to protecting it and sustainably benefiting from it," said Alex Monro, a taxonomist, systematist and field botanist at Kew and a senior author of the study published Monday in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science, in the press release.
The newly identified species, V. boliviana, was commonly and mistakenly believed to be Victoria amazonica, one of the two previously known species of giant waterlily, according to the study.
The loss of live specimens of the original species, as well as the scarcity of biological collections of giant waterlilies, resulted in disagreements over the number of recognized species and the incorrect naming of species for most of the 19th and 20th centuries. The goal of the study was to improve the knowledge of Victoria waterlilies.
An international team headed by Kew's scientific and botanical research horticulturist, Carlos Magdalena, botanical artist Lucy Smith and biodiversity genomics researcher Natalia Przelomska, alongside partners from the National Herbarium of Bolivia, Santa Cruz de La Sierra Botanic Garden and La Rinconada Garden, made the first discovery of a giant waterlily in more than a century.
The team made the breakthrough by compiling all existing information from historical records, horticulture and geography, assembling a dataset of species characteristics, and through DNA analysis.
Kew is the only place in the world that grows all the three species of Victoria together side by side, which Magdalena said allowed for the comparison of the species in a way not possible in the wild, where they grow over vast areas.
The study found V. boliviana to be genetically different from the two other species, but most closely related to V. cruziana, and that the two species might have diverged around a million years ago.
"For almost two decades, I have been scrutinizing every single picture of wild Victoria waterlilies over the internet, a luxury that a botanist from the 18th, 19th and most of the 20th century didn't have," said Magdalena, who suspected there was a third species since 2006 after seeing a picture of the plant online.
"I have learnt so much in the process of officially naming this new species and it's been the biggest achievement of my 20-year career at Kew," he said.
The giant waterlily can be seen in the Waterlily House and the Princess of Wales Conservatory at Kew Gardens.
Four Fort McMurray neighbourhoods were ordered to evacuate on Tuesday as a wildfire gets closer to the city.
Saskatchewan RCMP have revealed that a historic sexual assault investigation has led to the discovery of alleged crimes against children dating back to 2005.
Less than a week after two public sculptures featuring a livestream between Dublin, Ireland, and New York City debuted, 'inappropriate behaviour' in real-time interactions between people in the two cities has prompted a temporary shutdown.
After a final frame that saw the visiting Vancouver Canucks claw their way back and tie the game late, a point shot by Oilers defenceman Evan Bouchard with 38 seconds left (until what seemed like certain overtime) iced the 3-2 victory for Edmonton to knot the series.
Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker railed against Pride month, working women, President Biden's leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and abortion during a commencement address at Benedictine College last weekend.
King Charles III has unveiled the first portrait of the monarch completed since he assumed the throne, a vivid image that depicts him in the bright red uniform of the Welsh Guards against a background of similar hues.
The annual list of Canada's top restaurants in the country was just released and here are the places that made the 2024 cut.
The province has released more information on its plan to break up Alberta Health Services and replace it with four sector-based health agencies.
The Biden administration has told key lawmakers it is sending a new package of more than US$1 billion in arms and ammunition to Israel, two congressional aides said Tuesday.
A team is ready to help an entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
A $200 reward is being offered by a North Vancouver family for the safe return of their beloved chicken, Snowflake.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
YES Theatre Young Company opened its acclaimed kids’ show, One Small Step, at Sudbury Theatre Centre on Saturday.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.