A thief has made off with the tiny water lily Nymphaea thermarum – one of the rarest plants in the world – from the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew in London.

The Nymphaea thermarum, also known as the pygmy Rwandan water lily, vanished from a conservatory at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew on Thursday between 8.30am and 2.55pm.

Here, we report that Nymphaea nouchali Burm. f. (a cultivar of var. cernua), a large aquatic member of the family Nymphaeaceae, indulges in a primitive form of insectivory and represents the ...