# Please help ID this plant



## iamanoak

I was told it was a water sprite by the LFS but upon searching the net, it doesn't look like any water sprite I found.

Thanks for your efforts


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## NeonFlux

Hmm...kinda looks like water wisteria and then it doesn't..I'm not too sure, did you ask your seller?


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## HeyPK

Looks like water sprite (Ceratopteris) that has been grown emersed. When it starts growing in your tank it will show the submersed leaves which will look more familiar.


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## iamanoak

yeah, they said water sprite.


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## iamanoak

Thanks for helping guys/gals


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## Zapins

That look SO weird. I've never seen water sprite grow like that emersed, and those little roots look strange.

Keep us updated on it I'd love to see if it is water sprite when its had a chance to convert.


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## KatjaT

How about _Ceratopteris pteridoides_?


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## HeyPK

Zapins said:


> That look SO weird. I've never seen water sprite grow like that emersed, and those little roots look strange.
> 
> Keep us updated on it I'd love to see if it is water sprite when its had a chance to convert.


I have seen emersed leaves that look like that. The little roots are coming from little plantlets that will get started at the forks in the leaf. The roots come first, and then the bud produces the first little leaves. This is the only image of Ceratopteris plantlets I could find on the web.


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## iamanoak

Thanks for all the help guys/gals. I've included a couple update photos. I am leaning towards water sprite or water wisteria as the new leaves come out. 

Also included is a shot of my tank.

In addition, the 3rd and 4th shots are of a plant I picked up in the local river. I have no idea what it is but it seems to growing taller(slowly) but with leaves that turn yellow quite quickly. Any help with this new plant would be greatly appreciated.


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## iamanoak

That first picture is a filter feeding shrimp from our local river.


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## HeyPK

It is definitely water sprite (_Ceratopteris_), which is a crown plant. Water wisteria ( _Hygrophila difformis_) is a stem plant. The taxonomy of the genus, _Ceratopteris_, at least among us non experts in the aquarium world is badly confused with three or four species (or maybe varieties):

(1) _C. thalictroides_---This is the oldest one in the aquarium hobby, and the one you have. 

























(2) _C. Pteridoides_---Older aerial leaves have swollen base. Rare in the aquarium hobby. 









(3) _C. cornuta_---Aquatic leaves less divided than those of _C. thalictroides_. Sometimes called the 'oak leaved' _Ceratopteris_. Uncommon in the hobby. _C. thalictroides_ is frequently called _C. cornuta_ by aquarists. 









(4) _C. siliquosa_---Aquatic leaves more divided than those of _C. thalictroides_. 








There is a variety of _siliquosa_ where the leaves are even more finely divided and the tips are pointed:









Here is a picture of small plants of both _C. thalictroides_ and _C. siliquosa_.


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## miremonster

Hello HeyPK, 
that's a nice overview about Ceratopteris forms, but I disagree in some names:

-The colored C. "cornuta" drawing (3) shows a sterile C. pteridoides and the C. pteridoides line drawing (2, on the right) a fertile C. pteridoides. C. cornuta and C. pteridoides are often confused in the trade and in older aquarium literature.

-Ceratopteris cornuta and C. siliquosa are mostly regarded as synonyms of a highly variable species C. thalictroides in the broader sense (e.g. according to tropicos.org: http://www.tropicos.org/NameDetails.aspx?nameid=26612313, http://www.tropicos.org/NameDetails.aspx?nameid=26600371).

-Your (1) C. thalictroides with less divided leaves than "siliquosa" (= thalictroides forms with more divided leaves) may be the same as the (true?) C. "cornuta" as it is called by hobbyists in Europe and shown in the aquarium plant book of C. Kasselmann. 
Ceratopteris richardii may look the same or similar to Your C. thalictroides, it is written to be distinguishable from C. thalictroides only in the spore number per sporangium (http://efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=106195).


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## iamanoak

Wow, all this info just tells me how much I still don't know.


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## HeyPK

I was hoping a taxonomist would come along!

I was using the names, not from any taxonomic expertise, but from the way I was introduced to them. Back in the 50's and 60's, when there was only one Ceratopteris in the hobby, it was always called thalictroides and was the plant in picture 1. You are saying this should be cornuta or ricardii and cornuta should be pteridoides. The two siliquosa varieties should actually be thalictroides. 

I had pteridoides several times, but it never produced any fertile (spore-producing) leaves. 

OK. I will try to name them properly in the future.


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## miremonster

Hello HeyPK, 

I saw fertile C. pteridoides only one time, grown emersed in a greenhouse, they were large and had these thick petioles as in the drawing. It seems that this species develops spore-bearing fronds not as easily as the other Ceratopteris in culture. 
When we follow the taxonomists, it's once more difficult to call the different Ceratopteris thalictroides forms with different, but "correct" names... with C. pteridoides there's apparently no problem, it seems that only one type is cultivated. 
If C. richardii is among the thalictroides-like plants, we can't know without spore count. But it's probably not so likely. 
I'm not sure if the less divided C. thalictroides (1) is a typical "C. cornuta". In older aquarium plant literature big submersed plants of true "C. cornuta" are more coarse lobed than the (1)-type (but more divided than C. pteridoides that doesn't thrive submersed). I don't know how many forms of the thalictroides group are or were in the hobby, and if typical "cornuta" is still cultivated somewhere.


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## HeyPK

One thing I am sure of is that the pictures in my #1 category are the most common Ceratopteris in the hobby as well as the one I have in my last picture of the two kinds. 

Thanks, miremonster.


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## miremonster

> One thing I am sure of is that the pictures in my #1 category are the most common Ceratopteris in the hobby as well as the one I have in my last picture of the two kinds.


Yes, also here in Germany the (1) is the most common water sprite.
From the "siliquosa" types of C. thalictroides (4), this in Your 2nd pic with pointed tips (may be the "Vietnam" form) seems meanwhile to be more frequent in the hobby than others.


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