# Please help ID these plants



## mikolji (Sep 4, 2009)

Hi,
Would anybody happen to at least know to what genera these red aquatic plants belong to. They look like small red asparagus plants. The pictures were taken in their natural habitat in the Venezuelan Amazon. I know that the green ones belong to the _Eriocaulon_ genera but I really can't Id the red ones.
Thanks,
Mikolji


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## davemonkey (Mar 29, 2008)

They look like a mini _Rotala_ sp or possibly a mini _Bacopa_ sp. I don't know if that fits to the location, though.

-Dave


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## ashappard (Jun 3, 2006)

the red ones look like Rotala.
did you see any flowers from ones that had broken the surface?


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## Philosophos (Mar 1, 2009)

They're small and in shallow water. They may be a younger version of many things, and may not even grow submerged all the time.

Personally I'd take it home and grow it out in its own tank. I find this can be very rewarding at times; free, "rare" plants can be a 5 minute drive away some times.

-Philosophos


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

I think it's impossible to commit to an answer without flowers here. It could be one of any number of things.

The others may not necessarily be _Eriocaulon_: They could be _Paepalanthus_, _Syngonanthus_ or something else from _Eriocaulaceae_. If you have access to this set of books, they could be tremendously useful for you for all you found:
http://www.mobot.org/mobot/research/ven-guayana/welcome.shtml


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## mikolji (Sep 4, 2009)

Thanks for all your help,

The longest or tallest red plants in the pics “are” the mature plants; they break out of the water just a bit, but keep the same shape. They really look like a “drill bit”. I did not see any flowers on any of the hundreds that were in the area. We only found them in up to 1 foot deep waters and the tallest was 4 inches tall. I’m guessing they are the mature plant for we visited the spot one month ago and they still have the same size and shape while the rest of the plants have started their downhill decaying cycle in the wild.


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## miremonster (Mar 26, 2006)

Does this location fall dry periodically? If this is the case, flowers may appear during a dry period.


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## mikolji (Sep 4, 2009)

Cavan Allen said:


> I think it's impossible to commit to an answer without flowers here. It could be one of any number of things.
> 
> The others may not necessarily be _Eriocaulon_: They could be _Paepalanthus_, _Syngonanthus_ or something else from _Eriocaulaceae_. If you have access to this set of books, they could be tremendously useful for you for all you found:
> http://www.mobot.org/mobot/research/ven-guayana/welcome.shtml


You are a genius! How did you even find out about this book?


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## mikolji (Sep 4, 2009)

miremonster said:


> Does this location fall dry periodically? If this is the case, flowers may appear during a dry period.


You are right miremonster, the place was starting to dry up. It will probably be bone dry in a week or two. We did bring a couple back with us and placed them in an aquarium. I just thought it would be easy for somebody to ID it just by its "strange" looks! Guess some plants do have to be identified by the flower, right?


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

mikolji said:


> You are a genius! How did you even find out about this book?


I found them in a botanical library. They are quite good.


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## miremonster (Mar 26, 2006)

mikolji said:


> Guess some plants do have to be identified by the flower, right?


Yes, not only some plants - virtually all flowering plant species known to science are described by the botanists primarily after flower, inflorescence, fruit and/or seed characters. Without them it is often impossible to ID even the family or genus of a plant because the vegetative parts are often poor in distinguishing characters.


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

It's often possible to say what something is if it's been in the hobby a while and is familiar (and even then, sometimes the original ID is wrong), but wild and/or new ones usually need to be found with flowers and so on for an ID.


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