The Flower of Empire: An Amazonian Water Lily, the Quest to Make it Bloom, and the World It Created

The central narrative of Holway's book pivots around an 1837 British discovery in Guiana of an immense water lily, and the mission to make one bloom in England. Along with the story of a quest for germination is the author's equally appealing description of the botany-obsessed Victorian England where the building of glass greenhouses influenced the design of the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park for the Great Exposition of 1851. Holway's roots as a Dickensian scholar prove useful as she reaches into Nicholas Nickleby to describe London. She also makes use of the letters of Joseph Paxton, head gardener to the Duke of Devonshire, who built futuristic "stoves" of glass and iron to re-create the environment of the tropics. Holway traces the wonder of these greenhouses in chronicling the attempts of British horticulturists to have "culture fully dominate nature." Unfortunately, she largely ignores the plight of the natives of the colonies explored and glosses over any criticism of the egoism of empire-obsessed Britain.