The Longwood Gardens water lilies are wild! Those tray-looking plants are water-platters, and they can hold close to 200 pounds (yes, there’s a contest every year). They have massive spikes all over the bottom and the stem and still manatees love to eat them.

These plants are so wonderfully weird. About four huge platter leaves surround a single night-blooming flower. It blooms white and female, early in the morning till about 10:00 am, then closes up. The next day, it opens again one more time — but now it’s pink and male! After that, showtime’s over. A gender-fluid, color-turning flower is my new spirit animal.

The new conservatory by Weiss-Manfredi is marvelous, but the water lilies did me in.