# Not a melon sword, what am I?



## Silvering (Jun 10, 2011)

Got this from PetSmart, labeled "melon sword" - but it looks nothing like what shows up on a Google image search for _Echinodorus osiris_.

Closeup:









Whole plant: (please forgive flash, this is from back on the 9th when I didn't know how to use the camera, LOL)









In context: (standard 55g)









I suspect that the "greener" leaves with paler speckles are emmersed growth - the submerged leaves are larger, thinner, rufflier, and more strongly speckled. Oh, and it grows about 1.5" a day. :shock:


----------



## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

Try a google search for Echinodorus schlueteri 'leopard' or Echinodorus ozelot.


----------



## Silvering (Jun 10, 2011)

Thanks, HeyPK!

From what I've seen, it looks like the 'leopard' has elongated heart-shaped leaves and is supposed to be smaller than my plant, so I think my mystery sword is an ozelot. The leaves on mine lack the lobes at the base, and the plant is already 14" - though so far it seems content at that height and has been putting out new leaves rather than making the older ones grow longer. The new leaves come in the same color as they are when they get bigger, so it's not one of the 'red' varieties, but the speckles definitely are a maroon red - I'm really quite pleased by that, I didn't think I had enough light for red plants! 

It amuses me how different the planted hobby is from just fish - hybrid fish are frowned upon, but hybrid plants aren't. But the difficulty in ID'ing hybrids seems the same, and there seems not to be a really high-quality reference on the web that makes it easy to differentiate between closely related plant varieties. At least, I didn't run into any profile pages that had what I would consider "complete" information in my Google search.


----------



## catwat (Oct 5, 2009)

Looks like Echinodorus ozelot Green.


----------

