# More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)



## asukawashere

Just wanted to share some of my recent progress in the way of flowers with everybody:

_Limnophila sp. 'Vietnam'_
Buds:









Bloom:









Side View:









Staurogyne sp. 'Bihar'
The whole plant:









Flower:









and Fruit!








(tried to use the backlighting to candle the pod, so we can see a bit of what's inside...)

Will post more as things continue to bloom.


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## Zapins

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Very nice! Love the last shot with the backlighting.


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## asukawashere

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Thanks! I'm hoping to eventually get viable seeds out of that one - but I thought I'd cheat and try and see what's in there a little earlier.  I don't know if the lighter parts are just empty chambers or if they have seeds growing inside, but I have my fingers crossed!


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## Zapins

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

I'm pretty sure those are seeds. It looks too orderly for anything else.

I've had some polygonums and alternanthera seed before for me, even my HC did a few times, also my aciotis. It is a pretty rewarding feeling


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## miremonster

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Hello asukawashere,

great!
Limnophila sp. "Vietnam": How long are the pedicels (flower stalks) and the petals?
Limnophila key in Flora of China: http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=118595
=> Because of the similarity with L. aromatica and the short pedicels IMO the "Vietnam" might belong to L. chinensis or L. repens. But I don't know if further similar species occur in Vietnam.

But surely You plan to make specimens and to send them to Cavan anyway.


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## asukawashere

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Yeah, I've got a couple of cuttings from various species (including the Limno) currently being smushed under piles of aquarium literature, which I'll be sending to Cavan as a holiday present 

As for your questions, the pedicels are short. Like, practically nonexistent. The biggest one I've seen thus far is maybe 2mm. The span of the leaves at the whorls tops out at about an inch. It's a tiny plant.  As for the petals... I'd have to go find a ruler to be sure, and they're a bit difficult to measure what with the corolla's shape and such, but they're at a guess maybe 7mm...

Though the plant does look similar to L. repens, especially in terms of size, the Flora of China key seems to indicate that the emersed form of L. repens has strictly opposite leaves - 'Vietnam' as you can see in the photos, is whorled with typically 3 leaves to a whorl (I do occasionally see nodes with 4 leaves, and a few with 2, but the majority are 3-leaved).

In other news, my Staurogyne repens bloomed today. I'll have to take some pictures to share... also, my Lindernia sp. 'India' has produced seeds. Very, very tiny and very, very numerous seeds. Don't think I'll be getting pictures of those, but I'll send some to Cavan so he can stick them under a microscope.


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## Cavan Allen

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*



miremonster said:


> But surely You plan to make specimens and to send them to Cavan anyway.


But of course.  I also have Philcox's revision of the genus to use (though I have had trouble matching the 'Sulawesi').


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## asukawashere

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

More pretty pictures!

Staurogyne repens:


















And my constant nemesis, Micranthemum umbrosum:

















(This plant has the most annoyingly tiny flowers - it blooms prolifically and all, but they're so flippin' microscopic that I can never get a clear photo.)

And just for kicks, a couple peeks into my emersed tubs:


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## Zapins

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Heeey! Glad to see the staurogyne flowered again it only flowered once for me. I think it must be a long night plant because I had the lights on for a long time in my tubs. And the nesea is looking great!


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## asukawashere

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Wrong Stauro  The stuff I got from you is a lot of S. sp. 'Porto Velho' and a bit of something else that might be S. stolonifera - these latest flowers are from an S. repens specimen I got elsewhere (plus the dark purple S. sp. 'Bihar' at the top of the thread). Among other differences, S. repens has a much more upright growth habit than the 'Port Velho' (don't ask me how that works...)

That said, your 'Porto Velho' did flower for me over the summer and into mid fall. I kicked the tub outdoors until sometime in late September, not sure if the natural shortening of the photoperiod over that time triggered anything, but inside it gets lots 'n lots of light for around 11 hours/day, which it seems to enjoy. Actually, its growth has been crazy lately - I suspect an increase in foliar fertilizing is responsible...

I'm liking the Nesaea more and more - it's the N. pedicellata 'Golden' from FAN, picked it up at the last NAS auction, and it adds a ton of color to the tub... almost looks like it's on fire or something


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## Klaus07

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

To get a photo of annoyingly tiny flower, place a 10x objective in front of a point and shoot camera lens, focus as usual, and click. I got some acceptable photos of hydra that way. If you are really industrious take several photos using a tripod with slightly different focus points and then use helicon focus to merge the photos together.


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## Zapins

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

CombineZM also does focus stacking very well and it is free.


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## asukawashere

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Thanks for the tips! I'm nowhere near un-lazy enough to merge photos with a bunch of different foci, but I'll give the lens thing a shot if I can dig one up. And then glare at the _Micranthemum_ for making my life so difficult in the first place LOL.

In other news, today I finally had enough simultaneous _Limnophila sp. 'Vietnam'_ blooms to give artificial pollination a shot, so I got out one of my detail brushes (one of the benefits of being an artist is that brushes are readily available) and had at it. Hopefully it will be successful. 

Meanwhile, my _Limnophila rugosa_ specimen is budding, hopefully to bloom in the next few days. Observe:


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## asukawashere

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

And the L. rugosa has bloomed! And my hand is really shaky today, so all the pics are blurred! Also, it did not help my cause that the flower was at such an angle that I was forced to tip the pot on it's side and hold said flower up...



























This flower has a really unique hue to it that didn't quite translate to the screen - in person, it's more of a mauve color.


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## wabisabi

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Nice!


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## asukawashere

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Thanks! 

While I've been cooped up today with a virus, I went and took a couple more photos. First up is a nicer shot of the Limnophila rugosa:









Persicaria sp. 'Kawagoeanum' is an easy-to-flower, fast-growing weed:








(See also Poaeceae sp. 'Purple Bamboo' stems in the background). The P. 'Kawagoeanum' blooms frequently throughout the year, especially if I don't trim it for awhile...

And a non-aquatic treat from my accidental tree frog's current habitat (long story), Masdevallia 'Angel Fling'








This is a hybrid orchid I picked up at J & L Orchids, a well-known grower that happens to be just a few minutes down the road. This particular hybrid is one they created themselves, from a cross of M. 'Angel Frost' and M. 'Highland Fling'


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## asukawashere

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

My new job is eating my life. Srsly. But I managed to find a few minutes yesterday for messing around with macro lenses. So, better quality photos this time! And some new species to look at! Also a ton of Limnophila spp. shots that are sharper than the last bunch!

Staurogyne repens:









Limnophila rugosa:









Limnophila sp. 'Vietnam'









Limnophila sp. 'Sulawesi'
Bud:








Wilting flower:








(this is what happens when jobs eat your life - you don't always get to take photos right when the flower blooms. Woe is me.)

Limnophila aromatica:








(unlike the rest of its genus, L. aromatica has flowers that are big enough to get decent artsy shots of...)

And my favorite of this latest batch, Nesaea pedicellata 'Golden'








(This plant has yellow and orange leaves, red stems, and hot purple flowers. It's like an entire warm color palette puked in my plant tub or something.... I love it!)


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## asukawashere

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Finally got my (non-wilted) Limnophila sp. 'Sulawesi' flower this past weekend! Behold:








These flowers are roughly the same size as those of my L. aromatica (i.e. about 1cm wide) but shaped a bit more like those of the L. sp. 'Vietnam' or L. rugosa. Overall, I think the aromatica is the showiest bloomer of the Limno species in my posession.

Also, a favorite of mine from over the summer, my Lindernia grandiflora is back in bloom:

















The blooms are slightly larger than L. rotundifolia, L. sp. 'India' or L. dubia, and they're very intensely colored - the deep, royal purple really pops against the white background.


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## cableguy69846

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Those plants all look great. I wish I could get flowers like that. Keep it up man.


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## asukawashere

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Thanks for the compliments!
Flowering plants varies in difficulty from species to species, but generally I've found that if you give the plants plenty of light, plenty of nutrients, and time, they'll eventually bloom.

The real problem is the species that bloom for a short period, go to seed, and then promptly die off. -_-'


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## cableguy69846

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*



asukawashere said:


> Thanks for the compliments!
> Flowering plants varies in difficulty from species to species, but generally I've found that if you give the plants plenty of light, plenty of nutrients, and time, they'll eventually bloom.
> 
> The real problem is the species that bloom for a short period, go to seed, and then promptly die off. -_-'


This is going to be something to really look into. I think I am going to be on google for a while with this one.


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## asukawashere

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Another surprise when I got home from work today: my Persicaria sp. 'Porto Velho' is budding. Hoping for flowers soon, though Persicaria are difficult to catch with flowers open so no guarantee of pics... in any case, these are the buds:


















Note the cute little pink tips  That said, the P. 'Porto Velho' looks suspiciously like P. praetermissa (formerly P. sp. 'Ruby') except that it hails from completely the wrong continent - P. praetermissa is native to Southeast Asia and Australia; P. sp. 'Porto Velho' comes from Brazil. It could be a lookalike very close relative.

Also, I harvested some seed pods from my Staurogyne sp. 'Bihar' - see the first page of this thread for photos of the flowers and developing fruit. The pods are roughly 7-8mm long, with a tough outer shell:









No idea if these pods contain fertile seeds, but I'm going to bag 'em, tag 'em, and mail 
'em to Cavan if he wants them. Perhaps it'll help pin down an ID for the species. The plant is still developing more pods, so maybe I'll see if the next batch can be germinated.


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## Storms

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Wow, your flowers look great. Looking forward to our emersed growth meeting, if we ever have it.


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## asukawashere

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Thanks Luke!

The emersed meeting is getting combined into our 2/18 meeting, so yes, we'll still get to have it!


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## asukawashere

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

While my Limnophila and Lindernia species continue to bloom, this little beauty turned up just in this past week:








Hygrophila corymbosa 'Kompakt' has flowers the same size as other Hygro corymbosa cultivars I've flowered, just on a MUCH smaller plant. The overall effect makes for a lovely little specimen. The dark leaves make the bright purple blooms really pop. 

Also, just for kicks, here's a pic of my Accidental Tree Frog, who lives in a 10g emersed setup:









It's a long story as to how one ends up with a tree frog by accident, but he seems content to stay in my fishroom. I feed him spiders and other stray bugs that I catch in the basement. Right now he's sitting on the pot of an orchid species, Mediocalcar decorata, but that tank also houses a few Anubias in pots, some Lilaeopsis brasiliensis, and a random pot with a Staurogyne repens specimen. When he's not sitting here, his favorite perch, the Accidental Tree Frog also enjoys sticking to the glass and lurking underneath the leaves of my Anubias sp. 'Gabon 2'.


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## Zapins

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Wow. So that is what they look like. I've often heard them making sounds in the trees but never actually seen one. Now I know why - camouflage!

That Kompakt is really beautiful. Very nice contrast. You should email that to Cavan for the plant finder if you haven't already.


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## asukawashere

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Yeah, they're very well-camouflaged little critters. But this particular species isn't nearly as annoying as spring peepers, which are the ones responsible for those deafening "cheep" noises you hear in the spring. Gray tree frogs, like mine, make more of a high-pitched version of a woodpecker sound.

I don't think 'Kompakt' has an entry in the plant finder... of the other H. corymbosa variants, I think only 'Angustifolia' has a flower pic - and I'm not convinced it's the right flower, either (I've flowered 'Angustifolia' before, and the flowers were the same shape as you see in the 'Kompakt'... nothing like the one in the plantfinder.


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## Zapins

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Hmm looks like we have some plantfinder revisions and additions to make.

I like the spring peepers... I've also never seen one of them 

I think during the summer we'll have to do a frog collecting trip during one of our summer plant collecting trips!


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## asukawashere

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

I think we've already been frog collecting... or did I just imagine that trip where you started tackling bullfrogs? :mrgreen: Besides which, the best time to look for tree frogs is at night... they don't do much during the day LOL. As evidenced by the lazy lump on a rock a few posts up ^


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## Cavan Allen

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*



asukawashere said:


> Yeah, they're very well-camouflaged little critters. But this particular species isn't nearly as annoying as spring peepers, which are the ones responsible for those deafening "cheep" noises you hear in the spring. Gray tree frogs, like mine, make more of a high-pitched version of a woodpecker sound.
> 
> I don't think 'Kompakt' has an entry in the plant finder... of the other H. corymbosa variants, I think only 'Angustifolia' has a flower pic - and I'm not convinced it's the right flower, either (I've flowered 'Angustifolia' before, and the flowers were the same shape as you see in the 'Kompakt'... nothing like the one in the plantfinder.


I'm not sure what's up with that one either. It dates from before my tenure, so I don't know much about the photo. It could be it, but perhaps it's better to remove it, at least because it could be considered misleading. A PF update is coming, I promise.


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## Zapins

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Great! I'd love to get back to photographing plants for the plantfinder. I found a nice hair grass species that seems to grow new plantlets on the tips of old leaves. The leaves then droop down and the new plantlet inserts into the gravel and grows. Probably the fastest growing plant I've ever seen. I'll have to post some pics for ID but I haven't seen it before on APC so I'd bet its new or uncommon.


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## Cavan Allen

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Where did you find it?


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## Zapins

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

On google maps (or click link) copy and paste 38.597376,-121.507167 exactly like that into the search bar. That is exactly to within about 10 feet of where I found it along the bank.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=ll


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## green857

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Hey I think I have that hairgrass too! is it pretty tall when it gets little brown swellings which can then root correct. I guess we need pics!


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## asukawashere

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*



Zapins said:


> Great! I'd love to get back to photographing plants for the plantfinder. I found a nice hair grass species that seems to grow new plantlets on the tips of old leaves. The leaves then droop down and the new plantlet inserts into the gravel and grows. Probably the fastest growing plant I've ever seen. I'll have to post some pics for ID but I haven't seen it before on APC so I'd bet its new or uncommon.


You must bring some back with you this summer. This is not a request, it's a demand. :mrgreen:



Cavan Allen said:


> I'm not sure what's up with that one either. It dates from before my tenure, so I don't know much about the photo. It could be it, but perhaps it's better to remove it, at least because it could be considered misleading. A PF update is coming, I promise.


I'm almost certain that that photo is not the correct species. If anything, it looks more like a Ruellia inflorescence than a Hygrophila. Here's a photo from when my H. corymbosa 'Angustifolia' bloomed:









Like the H. corymbosa 'Kompact', 'Angustifolia' has a flower divided into an upper and lower lip, with the bottom lip being composed of three joined petals with a somewhat bullated texture... Unfortunately this photo is really blurry! I do have some 'Angustifolia' growing submersed in my show tank, though, so I can probably emerse and flower it again. Would rather wait 'til spring, though, since it's such a tall plant and I don't really have room for it indoors...

Remind me to send you the other photos for the PF update. I tried sending them a week or two back but the email exceeded your allowable attachment size and got bounced back to me... I was too lazy at the time to reattach LOL.


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## asukawashere

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Hey, look! An update!

So, actually, my fishroom is currently trying to recover from the chaos that was the NEC Convention. Also I bought a greenhouse kit, of which I have thus far managed to assemble one wall... in my defnse, this past weekend was rainy and gross and not at all suited to the assembly of greenhouses. Last weekend I was at said convention.

Aaaanyway, I think I missed the actual act of blooming last weekend, but here's a photo I snapped shortly before I left for the con:








This is Rotala sp. 'Mini Butterfly' - I can never remember whether 'Mini Butterfly' was confirmed to be a variant form of R. macrandra, or if it's still an unidentified species, though. Anyone more familiar with the genus know?


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## asukawashere

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*

Yes, I'm still alive!
I am also very pleased to report that my greenhouse is now up and running, and happily producing much vegetation. Especially of the stem variety. Most importantly, the plants are becoming quite bushy and making side shoots.

An eclectic mix of species are currently blooming on me - seems the Persicaria species never _stop_ blooming, really, but this particular photo features Persicaria sp. 'Sao Paolo' - which, incidentally, is huge compared to its more delicate submersed form:









Meanwhile, the stray stems of Bacopa caroliniana that I've been neglecting for several years now finally blossomed:









And as an unusual non-stem representative (also, this one's been living indoors, not in the greenhouse), my Cryptocoryne undulata pot has an open spathe right now:








Two more spathes are in progress, one on the same plant as the one in the photo (you can see the tip of it in the bottom-left), and one on a plant more toward the center of the pot - the flowering one is a daughter plant, I think, though there are enough similarly-sized plants in the pot that I can't quite tell which was the original...

Also, a bonus snapshot of wild blooms:








This Potamogeton amplifolius was encountered at the last CAPE meeting. Interesting plant, but a bit too large for aquarium use...


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## wabisabi

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*



asukawashere said:


> This is Rotala sp. 'Mini Butterfly' - I can never remember whether 'Mini Butterfly' was confirmed to be a variant form of R. macrandra, or if it's still an unidentified species, though. Anyone more familiar with the genus know?


Yes, 'butterfly' is a variant of R. macrandra.


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## asukawashere

*Re: More Flowers & Fruit (Yay!)*



wabisabi said:


> Yes, 'butterfly' is a variant of R. macrandra.


I suspected as much, but wasn't totally sure. Thanks for the confirmation!


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## asukawashere

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

Lots to share this time! You may have noticed the change to the thread title, as indicated therein, I intend to share some photos from my greenhouse as well as the continuing array of inflorescences that said greenhouse produces.

So, some cool new flowers to start:








Gratiola aurea









Eichornia crassipes (Water Hyacinth) growing in my pond









Bacopa madagascariensis

And some vegetation:








Acmella repens









Persicaria sp. 'Kawagoeanum'









Rotala sp. 'Green' and Ludwigia cf. suffruticosa

Greenhouse tubs:

























'



















Fun times, I tell you, peeps!


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## Cavan Allen

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

Nice. Let us know how the Ludwigia goes. Should be impressive if it really is suffuticosa.


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## asukawashere

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

We'll see soon, I hope - given the size of the plant, though, the flower is bound to be at least somewhat impressive (unless it's, like, proportionally microscopic). It's already trying to invade the adjacent trays, though (as evidenced by the photo), and the plant still doesn't look very mature. '


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## Bruce_S

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

Tiny though they are, there are some lovely blooms here! Love the dark-leaved violet "Kompact"! (Cute treefrog, too! I've seen accidental treefrogs arrive in nursery stock, and even come from the grocery store!)

~Bruce


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## asukawashere

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

Yeah, the 'Kompakt' is a really nice little plant, and it looks even better, foliage-wise, now that I have it in full sunlight. The older leaves pick up purplish undertones, while the new growth is pinkish on pale green. It's still flowering sporadically, but nothing quite so showy as the initial blooming captured in that previous photo... here's a closeup on the leaves from a few days ago:










Accidental tree frogs in nurseries, I understand... but how'd you find one in a grocery store?

That frog isn't the only one that's appeared in my basement... just the only one I found actually in an in-use tank. Usually I put them back outside when they turn up, but this one went and exposed himself to who-knows-what in a tank full of tropical fish... I couldn't in good conscience put him back in the wild.


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## Bruce_S

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*



asukawashere said:


> Accidental tree frogs in nurseries, I understand... but how'd you find one in a grocery store?


Bagged spinach, as I recall . . . t'was a while back, and someone other than myself who found the frog.

Good on you for realizing that exposure to aquarium life, however brief, could have disastrous effects in the wider world of amphibians! I might not have thought of it, even though I've seen the ongoing battles against chytrid waged by aquarists at my weekend job. Seems most captive amphibians are carriers.

~Bruce


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## asukawashere

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

Huh. Never figured spinach as the sort of environment a frog would like. Bananas, I could see. Spiders like to hide in shipments of bananas, and tree frogs love spiders... ah, well, to each frog his own 

As for diseases... I live in hopping distance of an Audubon Society preserve. Would hate to cause problems for them. After all, I'm currently trying to convince them to set up a local natives biotope aquarium!

Meanwhile in the greenhouse, my Nesaea triflora decided to spontaneously explode into bloom:









And I think it must be open season for aroid flowers (or something), because they're going crazy lately.

I missed the peak of my Anubias barteri var. caladiifolia's first flower (wasn't looking for it), and only got photos of the aftermath:








It's sending up another spathe, though, so maybe I'll get luckier with that one!

Then, just yesterday, an Anubias sp. 'Gabon 2' spathe decided to open up:








I know very little about aroid identification, but I have a few more shots from different angles if anybody thinks they might help figure out exactly what the plant's species-level ID is...

And my Crypts weren't about to let the Anubias hog the spotlight, with this C. wendtii 'Tropica' spathe opening up yesterday as well:








Admittedly not the most photogenic of spathes, but hey, it's trying! 

So, all-in-all, a productive week of flowering.


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## asukawashere

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

....And I totally should have updated this sooner, but I kinda just fail like that. Anyway, much flowering is still occurring in the greenhouse...









Hygrophila pinnatifida









This is a Sagittaria species that I grow in my pond... not exactly sure which, but it's not one of the ones that grows submersed.









This isn't exactly a textbook shot, but I thought the color scheme was kinda pretty. This one's Persicaria sp. 'Sao Paolo'









And another Hygro specimen, Hygrophila sp. 'Araguaia'









On the Bacopa front, this B. lanigera has been going wild. It's got these cute little purple and yellow flowers that I've decided I'm quite fond of. 

And just in case the world didn't have enough Bacopa monnieri flowers:

















This is allegedly Eleocharis sp. 'Belem', but without a microscope no one can say for sure. It's a hairgrass, it's small, the end. :mrgreen:

And, hopefully this will go a ways in confirming an ID for the hobby:








My Ludwigia cf. suffruticosa has (finally) gotten around to flowering. Before anyone asks, yes, I'm planning to press a couple of cuttings for ID purposes.









The flowers are actually a bit smaller than I had pictured in my head, at roughly 8-10mm across. They're also somewhat leggier than the photos I keep seeing elsewhere on the internet. As to why that may be, I'll leave to somebody with a key to figure out. I'll take a few more pics as the inflorescence develops, if I remember.  Maybe it'll eventually form one of those funky terminal spikes I keep seeing in reference pics. We'll just have to see!


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## Cavan Allen

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

I look forward to more pics of the last one, especially a side view of the fruit. I wonder if you don't see a spicate inflorescence (yet, anyway) because of where it's been growing. A pic of the leaf too?


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## neilshieh

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

wow! you got the Ludwigia cf. suffruticosa to flower! mine hasn't flowered yet 
i sent your pillosa/althe.. something/longicauda today!


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## asukawashere

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

Update on the L. cf. suffruticosa: I actually have pics that I'm too lazy to go pull off my camera right now; will upload those eventually, though, but I wanted to at least share the status of the flowering:

The plant is starting to form the aforementioned spike, so that's a point in favor of L. suffruticosa. I'm still wading through the 40-page key you sent me, Cavan, mostly to see if there's a possibility of it being a hybrid, but thus far I see the article specifically mentions 4 species-L. alata, L. pilosa, L. sphaerocarpa, and L. suffruticosa-as having showy-but-apetalous flowers like these. We can rule out L. pilosa and L. spaerocarpa based on the lack of pubescence on the stems (and also the leaves and flowers, in the case of L. pilosa). L. alata apparently doesn't form a congested spike, so that's off the table as well.

In short, I've pretty much concluded that this plant has L. suffruticosa as at least one parent, and am now looking at the hybrids... which may take awhile, seeing as that section compose the bulk of the paper's pages... but, hey, at least there's some progress to report!



neilshieh said:


> wow! you got the Ludwigia cf. suffruticosa to flower! mine hasn't flowered yet
> i sent your pillosa/althe.. something/longicauda today!


Got them the other day; thanks a bunch! Looking forward to growing them out. 
I think my cf. suffruticosa really liked being out in the greenhouse. It's kinda ginormous and sprawling.


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## Cavan Allen

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

Flowers definitely look like suffruticosa. L. sphaerocarpa sepals never that white, L. alata has obviously winged stems (hence the name), and L. pilosa sepals are wider, with readily apparent lines along their length. And that's beside the pubescent leaves and all. Specimes of hybrids of suffruticosa and others I've seen seem to all have spicate inflorescences, though often more than one per plant usual of pure suffruticosa. Most likely it's pure I'd think, despite looking a bit different in cultivation.


----------



## miremonster

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

Is asukawashere's flowering Ludwigia the same plant that's shown in this plantfinder entry?: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...tails.php?id=338&category=genus&spec=Ludwigia


----------



## asukawashere

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*



miremonster said:


> Is asukawashere's flowering Ludwigia the same plant that's shown in this plantfinder entry?: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...tails.php?id=338&category=genus&spec=Ludwigia


It's a different species, but from the same section (Microcarpium) of Ludwigia. L. sphaerocarpa was originally introduced to the hobby as L. pilosa, another close relative.

As for Cavan's request for a better view of the foliage:


















It's a large, sprawling sort of plant... as you can see, I've trimmed it back a couple of times in an effort to contain it, and it still seems inclined to go all over the place. Those are standard 12x24" nursery trays underneath it in the background.

And here's a more recent shot of the flower:








As you can see, it's becoming more spicate now, especially the topmost buds that haven't yet opened.

Meanwhile...








Bacopa salzmannii has proven to have a distinctly dull flower in comparison to the rest of the Bacopa species in my collection. I caught this flower slightly past its prime, but it was nothing to write home about even at its best.









This Aciotis acuminifolia bud sat unopened for days, teasing me. I think it must have bloomed at night, or something, because it somehow went from bud to fallen-off petals without my ever seeing it open, despite checking on it several times a day.









Another plant whose flowers never seem to actually be open - this is Staurogyne sp. 'Purple'

On the other hand, I've seen plenty of flowers on this plant, so now here's the resulting fruit:








(Nesaea triflora)


----------



## Cavan Allen

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

I don't think there's any reason not to drop the cf from the suffruticosa now.

Odd, bigstick has had the same issue with emersed 'purple' he had going.


----------



## neilshieh

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

My S. purple has bloomed many times and i've harvested seeds from the pods but only on this one cutting of the plant that is completely different in structure than the rest of my S. purple plants (amanda i mentioned this to you earlier). I am POSITIVE that it is S. purple and distinctly remember cutting that cutting myself many months ago.
my normal S. Purple plants look like


Here's the cutting that has a small leaf structure, very fuzzy, and flowers constantly and produces seed pods.






The whole stem is slender and vine like with those small fuzzy lobed leaves. There aren't any seed pods right now since I plucked most of them off. 
Any thoughts?


----------



## Cavan Allen

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

Yes, but do the flowers open?


----------



## neilshieh

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

yep!


----------



## asukawashere

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

Yay for the removal of the "cf" from L. suffruticosa! Perhaps I can use this as material for a future column...



neilshieh said:


> yep!


Pics or it didn't happen! :mrgreen:
All kidding aside, I would like to see pics just to sate my own curiosity... and to get an idea of what I'm looking for.


----------



## chrislewistx

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

Amanda,
Congratulations on the TFH column. I accidentally ran across it yesterday, while thumbing through a copy of TFH to decide if I would buy one.


----------



## asukawashere

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

Thanks, Chris! I'm really excited to be writing on a regular basis


----------



## neilshieh

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

well i hope i catch the flowers in bloom again!


----------



## asukawashere

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

Well, the weather's been cooling down lately-we've had our first hard frost of the season, which the greenhouse weathered admirably. Some damage at the tips of the plants closest to the walls, but otherwise everything survived. Nonetheless, I'll have to start bringing the tropical stuff indoors over the next couple of weeks. Natives and winter-hardy specimens (i.e. Lindernia dubia, Gratiola aurea, Lobelia cardinalis, and Orontium) will simply be left out there all winter. I'll be experimenting with some species that are native to/hardy a couple states to the south, seeing if the extra few degrees the greenhouse provides in the winter will allow these to overwinter outdoors. Species like Acmella repens, Zephyranthes candida, Bacopa caroliniana and B. monnieri (heck, maybe all my Bacopa species; since I have volume of most of them), and maybe some Echinodorus specimens are up for this treatment.

Anyway, we are getting some fall flowers to look at, from an interesting array of plants. Some are continuing bloomers, others (such as Acmella repens) seem to be responding to the cooler temps/shorter photoperiod and are sending out buds for the first time.









One of many A. repens flowers cropping up.









Hygrophila sp. 'Araguaia' continues to bloom









An update on the Ludwigia suffruticosa inflorescence









Anubias heterophylla, one of the few aroids I've had outdoors, has a bud









This Lindernia dubia is one of the plants that will be left outdoors to fend for itself in the winter









Gratiola brevefolia has a lovely white flower with a yellow center









Nesaea crassicaulis offers some pink in the fall lineup

And meanwhile, the Bacopa species continue to go nuts, with two new bloomers this month. I also finally caught a fully-open, non-wilted B. salzmannii:









And for the first time, Bacopa sp. 'Japan' is offering some blooms:

















... Which, looking at them, are markedly similar to the B. salzmannii, though B. salzmannii petals are a tad more connected and a bit wider. I would not be surprised if B. sp. 'Japan' is a variant of B. salzmannii, or, barring that, an extremely closely-related species. I've pressed a specimen for Cavan's examination. Anybody got a Bacopa key they can lend me?

Also, B. australis finally deigned to grace me with a bloom last week:








...which means I've successfully flowered all the bacopa species I own, and thus am obligated to find some new ones to try. Anybody have some spare B. myriophylloides, B. rotundifolia, B. repens, or B. whatever-you-don't-see-pics-of-here...? I'm game for trading


----------



## Cavan Allen

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

I found that corolla color can be influenced by intensity of light exposure; formerly purplish L. aromatica became white when moved indoors. So I think it's possible that things may not be as they seem in that regard. But yes, they do look similar. I have a key somewhere; I'll dig it up. DO want specimens though!


----------



## asukawashere

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

I've already got a 'Japan' flower being squashed, as I mentioned-do you want a pressing of the salzmannii, too, for comparison?


----------



## Cavan Allen

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

Can't hurt.


----------



## neilshieh

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

:/ howd you get the brevifolia to bloom???
btw my s. purple bloomed but im not seeing any open flowers. the weird cutting of my s. purple hasnt bloomed yet so yeah... ill post when it does.


----------



## asukawashere

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*



Cavan Allen said:


> Can't hurt.


...So, naturally, as soon as I go out this morning to pick a salzmannii flower, I find that for the first time in days, the plant doesn't have an open one. Oh well, there are still buds, so I'll get one eventually. Maybe tomorrow. It'd be easier if the flowers were open for more than a few hours prior to wilting, though...

Anyway, I contented myself with poking at some of my indoor aroids and documenting a couple of spathes:









Anubias sp. 'Gabon Type 2' has been rather prolific as of late...









...but this is the first flower I've seen on my Bucephalandra sp. 'Sekadau'

I'm still pondering the best setup for indoor growing this winter. In years past, I've contented myself with a couple of bins tucked underneath the tank racks in the fishroom, but given this year's outdoor expansion (thank you, greenhouse!) I'm not sure my current collection will fit. I'm probably going to have to string up a wire rack with some shop lights for the nursery trays; I just haven't quite figured out the specifics yet.  Undoubtedly I'll start with the under-tank bins for the most delicate specimens, regardless of the final details.


----------



## asukawashere

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*



neilshieh said:


> :/ howd you get the brevifolia to bloom???
> btw my s. purple bloomed but im not seeing any open flowers. the weird cutting of my s. purple hasnt bloomed yet so yeah... ill post when it does.


With magic and the power of love, of course!

Actually, I just threw it out in the greenhouse with the other emersed plants, kept it watered, let it grow in full sun for awhile, waited, and voila! Flowers.

That's my lazy approach to flowering, at least. If a plant looks particularly needy, or starts showing signs of any deficiency, I add some miracle gro in the next watering. If it's _really_ being stubborn, sometimes I'll spritz it with a bit of watered-down Flourish comprehensive for some extra foliar fertilization. The G. brevefolia didn't require any extra care, but it only threw out a few flowers here and there. Might have made some more with a bit more attention.

More often than not, the major ingredient in flowering a plant is just time. Case in point: I've had my Acmella sitting around for a good year now, growing strong and healthy the whole while, but it wasn't until just recently-probably due to a seasonal trigger-that it started to bloom.


----------



## AaronT

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

I'm glad someone got suffriticosa flowers this summer. Mine never flowered in my tub pond and we've been trying to make a positive ID ever since I collected it 3 years ago.

It does run all over the place, but that could make it a cool foreground plant in larger tanks as it grows completely recumbent in strong lighting and if trimmed keeps smaller leaves.


----------



## Cavan Allen

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*



asukawashere said:


> More often than not, the major ingredient in flowering a plant is just time. Case in point: I've had my Acmella sitting around for a good year now, growing strong and healthy the whole while, but it wasn't until just recently-probably due to a seasonal trigger-that it started to bloom.


The flowering specimens we used to make an ID were also obtained very late in the season.

_L. suffruticosa_ doesn't even need light that strong to stay low. As Aaron mentioned, it does take some trimming to keep it the best size, but it's not too much work. Nice plant.


----------



## BruceF

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

Boy that Acmella repens reminds me so many of the perennials I grow, Echinacea ratibida Rudbeckia not to mention the asters themseves. All of them later in the season.


----------



## asukawashere

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*



Cavan Allen said:


> The flowering specimens we used to make an ID were also obtained very late in the season.


True-though I also started it pretty late, sometime around May I think. I'm sure specimens down south have a much better head start on their growing season. It may just be that L. suffruticosa takes awhile to grow up, rather than it waiting for a particular cue to bloom.

FWIW, L. sphaerocarpa is native (albeit endangered) here, and the CT Botanical Society records its flowering time as anywhere between July and September. I recall thinking back in July that, despite its penchant for throwing out foot-and-a-half long stolons, my L. suffruticosa still didn't look particularly mature. I'd hazard a guess that the wide range in L. sphaerocarpa bloom times has a lot to do with how far inland a particular specimen is (and therefore how late a start it gets), and how much faster it can grow with just a few degrees' difference in warmth. (For comparison: daffodils in coastal towns like Darien bloom up to a month earlier than the same exact plant in even a slightly more northern town like Easton, even though both are in southern Fairfield County.) If the blooming habits of L. suffruticosa are at all similar to L. sphaerocarpa, it's probably my fault the flowers showed up as late as they did.



BruceF said:


> Boy that Acmella repens reminds me so many of the perennials I grow, Echinacea ratibida Rudbeckia not to mention the asters themseves. All of them later in the season.


It is a relative (same family, Asteraceae), so it's not that surprising. Our Rudbeckia are also late bloomers - they start flowering in September and keep going until around Thanksgiving, frost and all.


----------



## AaronT

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

Forgive me if missed it, but what substrate are you growing these in?

Any chance of a full greenhouse shot?


----------



## Cavan Allen

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*



asukawashere said:


> True-though I also started it pretty late, sometime around May I think. I'm sure specimens down south have a much better head start on their growing season. It may just be that L. suffruticosa takes awhile to grow up, rather than it waiting for a particular cue to bloom


Oops, I meant the _Acmella_.


----------



## Cavan Allen

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*



BruceF said:


> Boy that Acmella repens reminds me so many of the perennials I grow, Echinacea ratibida Rudbeckia not to mention the asters themseves. All of them later in the season.


FYI, all but one of the North American plants in the genus _Aster_ have been moved to other genera, many to _Symphyotrichum_. Off topic...


----------



## asukawashere

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*



AaronT said:


> Forgive me if missed it, but what substrate are you growing these in?
> 
> Any chance of a full greenhouse shot?


Dirt. Plain old dirt collected from the woods behind my house. Pretty rich in organic material, lots of earthworm castings thanks to the leaf litter, not much else to recommend it.

I can take a full greenhouse shot next time I'm out there in the daytime with a camera. Are you talking about the outside or inside of the greenhouse?  In the mean time, here are some photos from some of the trays:
















































Cavan Allen said:


> Oops, I meant the _Acmella_.


Oh. That makes more sense in retrospect LOL. Nevermind, then!


----------



## AaronT

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

Yeah, pictures of the inside and outside. Do you plan to overwinter the plants in the greenhouse? If so, how would you go about that?


----------



## Zapins

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*

You should buy a propane heater/CO2 maker. It will warm the greenhouse and at the same time provide CO2 for the plants from the combustion making them grow insanely quickly. Maybe one of those temperature sensors as well to open the vents to cool the thing off when it gets too hot.


----------



## asukawashere

*re: More Flowers & Fruit (Now with Bonus Greenhouse Fun!)*



AaronT said:


> Yeah, pictures of the inside and outside. Do you plan to overwinter the plants in the greenhouse? If so, how would you go about that?


Only the hardy plants are going to be overwintered outdoors, so I don't have any plans in that regard. If I were going to try to overwinter tropicals, I'd probably start by first investing in a bigger greenhouse-my little hobby-sized unit (8'x12') just doesn't have enough thermal mass to do more than extend the growing season a month or two in either direction. In comparison, I've visited commercial-sized units that are still 50 degrees inside even in January, without additional heating. I might be able to squeeze a few more weeks out of mine by installing a compost bin in it and using the decomposition to warm it a bit, but I'm still fighting a losing battle.



Zapins said:


> You should buy a propane heater/CO2 maker. It will warm the greenhouse and at the same time provide CO2 for the plants from the combustion making them grow insanely quickly. Maybe one of those temperature sensors as well to open the vents to cool the thing off when it gets too hot.


I don't think it'd be cost effective to try and heat such a small space. Also, a propane heater would be churning out CO2 the most in the middle of the night, exactly when it's least helpful. The roof vent does have an automatic, thermally-operated opener on it, though.

In any case, here are some photos:




























It's a little messier than usual thanks to all of our tropical potted plants (and last-minute dug-up garden basil, Coleus, etc.) being thrown in there to avoid a frost. A couple random bags of aquarium gravel are also strewn about, primarily because I don't feel like keeping them in the basement and secondarily in the hope that they contribute a bit to heat retention.


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## asukawashere

Has it really been over a month since I updated this? I suppose it has. I totally blame Superstorm Sandy, snoreastercanes are so very distracting... anyway, we made it through okay and are now operating in "winter mode" of plant cultivation. Natives and hardy species have mostly gone dormant, thanks to the on-and-off frosty nights. Tropicals are indoors recovering from varying degrees of chill.

Flower-wise, here's what's been happeneing:









This Rotala indica sort of just sprung up out of nowhere, it may have come from seed since I thought all of my R. indica died off last year... in any case, it grew, I watered it, and flowers happened.









More flowering R. indica









Hygrophila sp. 'Bold' has been producing little flowers as of late. They're not very exciting, but the plant is incredibly prolific in terms of growth.









Aciotis acuminiflia continues to thwart me with its impossible-to-catch flowers. One day there's a bud, the next there's a wilted purple husk, and the flowers never seem to be open at any point in between. I'm holding with my theory that it's an evening bloomer or something, since I've tried catching it at all points in the day.









Nesaea crassicaulis hit its peak blooming about a week and a half ago, with each stem covered in these little pink flowers.









In terms of all-around color, few plants can rival Nesaea pedicellata 'Golden' -red stems, orange and yellow leaves, fuschia flowers, and so on. It's downright riotous. '









And for a wrap-up, Hygrophila difformis. I don't think I've bloomed this one before (just never got around to it, I suppose), but the flowers are very similar to H. corymbosa.

I also harvested, bagged, and tagged seeds from my Nesaea triflora for future use. Either I'll use them to grow a tray of plants in the spring, or I'll distribute them to various other hobbyists to play with. Probably a little of both. Unlike their actively growing counterparts, seeds ship for the cost of a stamp. On the downside, they're often a pain to germinate.

So. Winter cultivation ahead. Have I mentioned how much I hate winter? It's cold, it's dark (sundown before 5pm? Ugh!), it's miserable, snow is a thing of evil, and my electric bill inevitably goes through the roof thanks to all the plants that have to be kept indoors. Yuck. I'd just as soon hibernate until March if there weren't so many things to keep alive in the basement and plans to make for spring events.

Speaking of spring events, the NEC has asked me to run a nano planted tank workshop at their convention in April. Somehow before then we have to wrangle donations of 16 matching nano tank setups with lights, lots of small plants (some of which I'll contribute myself), substrate, hardscape, and maybe some nano fish. If anyone would like to contribute to the event, it would be much appreciated. Donation information can be found on the convention website if you follow the link above.


----------



## totziens

Looks good. Glad they survive the nasty Sandy....


----------



## K Randall

asukawashere said:


> Speaking of spring events, the NEC has asked me to run a nano planted tank workshop at their convention in April. Somehow before then we have to wrangle donations of 16 matching nano tank setups with lights, lots of small plants (some of which I'll contribute myself), substrate, hardscape, and maybe some nano fish. If anyone would like to contribute to the event, it would be much appreciated. Donation information can be found on the convention website if you follow the link above.


Wonder where they got THAT idea.


----------



## asukawashere

It _is_ the latest fad for aquarium conventions, or so I hear... It's great to see the more fish-oriented hobbyists warming up to the idea of planted tanks, though.


----------



## shieber

It's NEC "leadership." What else can one expect? They borrow ideas like they borrow people.


----------



## herns

asukawashere said:


> Just wanted to share some of my recent progress in the way of flowers with everybody:
> 
> _Limnophila sp. 'Vietnam'_
> Buds:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Isnt this plant*^^Limnophila sp mini^^*?
> 
> http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/plantfinder/details.php?id=221
> 
> Here is* Limnophila sp Vietnam*
> http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...63657-limnophila-mini-vietnam.html#post482399
Click to expand...


----------



## miremonster

I'm not very familiar with the Limnophila repens (L. sp. "Mini"), but it's apparently clearly different from the L. sp. "Vietnam" (that I know much better) at least in the submersed form (plantfinder photo): upright habit, and only 2 (-3?) quite broad leaves per node. "Vietnam": much narrower and much more leaves per node.
But if the L. sp. "Vietnam" belongs to another species or is just another variant of L. repens - perhaps Cavan will find out that. I would not be surprised if the "Vietnam" belonged to _Limnophila chinensis_, but let's see...


----------



## herns

Its easy to distinguished them. Limnophila sp vietnam leaves shape are similar with Limnophila aromatica.
See in this link.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&p=limnophila+aromatica

While Limnophila sp mini are shorter. Take a look the photo post #85.


----------



## miremonster

While the emersed forms of both repens ("Mini") and "Vietnam" are really quite similar. I've grown the "Vietnam" emersed, it didn't look that pretty as asukawashere's plants and I didn't manage to flower it, but it developed quite broad, short leaves, only 2-4 per node.


----------



## asukawashere

The plant I grew is definitely the 'Vietnam' -it had a lot more leaves per whorl (like 5 or 6 if I recall correctly) in submersed form when I received it; it switched to having fewer leaves when it converted to emersed form. As miremonster noted, they are rather similar emersed.

In other news, I finally got my Aciotis acuminifolia flower shot! And lo and behold, it was kinda late in the evening that I caught it open and snapped a couple of shots. When I went back two hours later for some more, it was already starting to wilt.










On a more woeful front, I dropped my camera on a sidewalk the other day and broke it (sorrow!). It's now somewhere in the mail, being sent to TX for repair... biggest issue is the badly cracked LCD screen, it otherwise seems to be functional, but without the screen I can't check the menu functions, and, even worse, I can't focus the pictures.

The greatest tragedy of all is that my Crypt zukalii has its first-ever spathe (after like a year and a half of growing from a tiny plantlet), which looks like it'll open any day now, and I don't have a good way to take a photo of it... alas.


----------



## neilshieh

Amazing! my aciotis is still growing really slowly and showing no signs of flowers. That weird form of s. purple I was talking about is showing a bunch of buds ready to bloom! I will have my camera handy :3


----------



## asukawashere

Yes, well, it appears my Aciotis flowered like a maniac for about 2-3 weeks (not that I got to _see_ most of the flowers, but anyway...) and then promptly shriveled up and died back the other day  I don't pretend to understand why, since no conditions changed in that time, but I'm hoping it's just going dormant or something and will grow back... perhaps that's just wishful thinking, though.


----------



## Bruce_S

I hope it comes back - that's a pretty plant, and a gorgeous photo!


----------



## asukawashere

Thanks, Bruce!

In the mean time, though, my Cryptocoryne zukalii spathe went and opened up. Alas, my camera is still being repaired, but I did borrow my sister's smartphone (and ultimately my sister, seeing as I can't work mobile devices to save my life) to snap a couple of photos. I know it's nothing near my usual standards, but I offer the best I can get in the circumstances:










A closer view of the kettle:









And the collar and limb from a slightly different angle:









Rusty orange is a good color on spathes, IMO.


----------



## wabisabi

asukawashere said:


> Thanks, Bruce!
> 
> In the mean time, though, my Cryptocoryne zukalii spathe went and opened up. Alas, my camera is still being repaired, but I did borrow my sister's smartphone (and ultimately my sister, seeing as I can't work mobile devices to save my life) to snap a couple of photos. I know it's nothing near my usual standards, but I offer the best I can get in the circumstances:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A closer view of the kettle:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And the collar and limb from a slightly different angle:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Rusty orange is a good color on spathes, IMO.


Cool spathe!


----------



## neilshieh

just thought i'd chime in on growing ludwigia cf. suffruticosa, i find that it does sometimes grow upright but for some odd reason it hugs the ground very closely when i leave the plant to it's own device. i just let the plant grow by itself in my 46 which fell into neglect and when i was breaking down the tank the other day and pulling out all of the ludwigia suffruticosa i found it had grow flat REALLY flat all over the tank versus when i used to grow them in tubs and it'd grow upright.


----------



## asukawashere

Hey, look! I'm still here! Kinda-sorta, if you squint. Actually, with spring approaching, I'm sloooowly moving out of hibernation and working up to the point where I heave all the plants back out in the greenhouse. I very nearly did it last week, only to encounter one random night where it dropped down to the low 20s, so I dodged a bullet by being lazy. Daytime temps in the greenhouse are in the 80s (as indicated by the automatic vent opening during the day to air it out), but its thermal mass is such that dropping below the upper 20s risks a frost.

On a vaguely related note, I did actually plant some trays of seeds for the vegetable garden yesterday to give them a head start on the growing season. Sometime this week I'll also plant the peas, as soon as I make them a new wire cage to climb on. The local vegetable species are a little more tolerant of a chill than tropical aquatic plants.

I'd really been hoping to get an earlier move on sending the plants out for the spring-last year's early warming spoiled me, I think. On April 5th the NEC Convention starts (everybody come visit!), and I was hoping to have more cuttings to bring with me.

Meanwhile, in my indoor kilowatt-burning plant rack of doom, there's been a little bit of flower activity, but that's it. Most of it's species that have already flowered profusely in the past (Hygrophila corymbosa, Nesaea spp., Anubias barteri var. caladiifolia, etc.) so I haven't taken many pictures, but here's a new one for y'all:









My earlier attempts at photographing the nigh-microscopic inflorescence of Micranthemum umbrosum were so stunningly mediocre that I decided to go and try with an even tinier species! :mrgreen: This Hemianthus glomeratus (formerly H. micranthemoides, aka "HM") I got sometime at the end of January up and decided to bloom...if you can even call it that. I pretty much ignored it until I was looking in the tank the other day and noticed the_ tiny_ flowers.

Here's a few more shots in case one vague blob isn't enough:


















On a later note, I'm departing home in mid-April for a week's vacation in (hopefully sunny) Myrtle Beach, SC (or, actually, Garden City Beach, but it's the same stretch of shoreline). Anybody know any good collecting points in Horry County, or any species I absolutely have to track down while I'm there? I know the beachline has these neat black rocks that have been pitted and weathered by the wave action (I collected a small bag of them years ago when I visited and have used them from time to time in nano setups since), but I can't say I know much about the flora there.



neilshieh said:


> just thought i'd chime in on growing ludwigia cf. suffruticosa, i find that it does sometimes grow upright but for some odd reason it hugs the ground very closely when i leave the plant to it's own device. i just let the plant grow by itself in my 46 which fell into neglect and when i was breaking down the tank the other day and pulling out all of the ludwigia suffruticosa i found it had grow flat REALLY flat all over the tank versus when i used to grow them in tubs and it'd grow upright.


The long, horizontal stems you're seeing are stolons; they're produced later in the growing season and spread out, only to start new upright plants in the spring. The last section overview I read indicated that some Ludwigia in sect. Microcarpium (which includes L. suffruticosa) produce stolons up to 2.5m (a little over 8ft) in the wild. In my greenhouse the plant kept trying to throw stolons over to the other trays, and I kept having to hack them back to keep it under control. It'll run all over the place if you don't watch it, as you've discovered! :mrgreen:


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## asukawashere

It occurs to me I should also clarify that the above _is_ the real H. glomeratus, not that oddball 2-leaf-per-node stuff that no one's quite sure about (rest assured that if I had that, I would be pressing these flowers instead of just glaring halfheartedly at their blurry photos). The submersed leaves of this specimen all have 3-4 leaves per node. I don't entirely know what's up with the new growth being all opposite-leaved and such, but it's probably some kind of transitional thing.


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## Cavan Allen

I can give you some specific spots for real _L. pilosa_, but they're a ways north and south of where you'd be. That said, you could no doubt find some in between if you look in the right place. It would be a pretty early in the season, so you'd have to be able to recognize it without flowers or fruit. I suggest consulting the monograph you mentioned for more information of that and related plants. BTW, sections Dantia (repens, palustris, etc) and Microcarpium have/will be combined into section Isnardia.
_
Lachnocaulon minus_ would be a good one too.


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## asukawashere

...What on earth are they combining them for? They don't seem to have much in common morphologically. ' Oh well, thanks for the heads-up.

I suppose the easiest solution is to just bring home all the Ludwigia specimens I may or may not encounter and grow them out! :mrgreen: But yes, it would be nice to try to bring some real L. pilosa into the hobby—or even to find some of the other (formerly) Microcarpium species to play with. It looks like L. linearis and L. microcarpa are also known to occur in the area, and to my knowledge neither has been tested for aquarium usage.

I know Lilaeopsis carolinensis is also on my hit list, if I can find it, just because I saw some once in FL and it was really cool.

If I run into the Lachnocaulon, I'll be sure to grab one... who knows, maybe it could be the exception to the general tendency of erios to keel over as soon as I lay eyes on them. That said, I can't find any occurrence records in Horry cty.—but there are records in the NC county immediately north.

... It is, of course, entirely possible that this early in the year, nothing much will be growing. I may just come home with half a ton of hardscape! XD


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## neilshieh

That would explain the beastly growth! Ludwigia cf. suffruticosa is really a pervasive plant, the leaves that fall off start growing into new plantlets and as you can probably imagine... this plant gets everywhere basically. 

how do you tell the difference between ludwigia sphaerocarpa and pilosa? is the one I have the former? 

btw amanda, let me know when you get your plants settled in your greenhouse so i can start shipping you your plants!  my hygrophila lancea just finished flowering and producing fruit so I can replenish my seeds


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## Cavan Allen

We have tried both linearis and microcarpa. The former can be a good plant, but is not easy to adapt (WAY easier starting with stolons) and is prone to stunting. Looks rather like an alternate-leaved _Ammannia_.

_L. microcarpa_ apparently does not like really soft water, so it might do well for you. It can be a decent yellowish mid ground plant.

We tried _Ludwigia linifolia_ as well, but that's certainly nothing to write home about. It grows, but...

Apparently, _L. octovalvis_, while a _slow_ grower, does fairly well.


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## Cavan Allen

neilshieh said:


> That would explain the beastly growth! Ludwigia cf. suffruticosa is really a pervasive plant, the leaves that fall off start growing into new plantlets and as you can probably imagine... this plant gets everywhere basically.
> 
> how do you tell the difference between ludwigia sphaerocarpa and pilosa? is the one I have the former?


We can drop the cf; it is definitely _L. suffruticosa_. 

You have _L. sphaerocarpa_, and as far as I know, nobody has tried actual pilosa yet. Or do you mean more how they differ in terms of the whole plant?


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## neilshieh

L. suffruticosa it is! I'm not too terribly well versed in naming nomeclature 

Amanda teach me your flowering secrets! seems like i can only get easy plants like lindernias, bacopa, persicaria, hygrophila, and staurogynes to flower 
i would really love to see the sphaerocarpa flower some day... lol


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## neilshieh

Btw.... did you ever successfully collect seeds from hygrophila araguaia? mine went into full bloom but then promptly died. this happened twice for me, in my 10 gallon tank and my 46 gal.


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## Cavan Allen

neilshieh said:


> i would really love to see the sphaerocarpa flower some day... lol


You're going to have to put it outside for that. It's really a much, much different plant than the stolon growth you see now. As Amanda noted, last year's stolons grow into the next year's new plants, which have totally different leaves and grow upright to maybe 2ft or so. You won't get that in your small, really humid enclosure. I'd move it outside when you can and give it lots of room.


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## asukawashere

Cavan Allen said:


> _L. microcarpa_ apparently does not like really soft water, so it might do well for you.


In that case, I'm sure L. microcarpa and I will be just the bestest of buddies. Now I just have to find it! XD It might make a good plant for my vaguely brackish molly/coastal species tanks.

...Seems like no matter what plant I think of, you GWAPA guys have already tried it! But I like hearing experience rather than speculation, so it's all good.



neilshieh said:


> Amanda teach me your flowering secrets! seems like i can only get easy plants like lindernias, bacopa, persicaria, hygrophila, and staurogynes to flower
> i would really love to see the sphaerocarpa flower some day... lol


Secretly, I employ little magic flower fairies to bless my plants every night as I sleep. :mrgreen:

All jokes aside, most of my flowering "secrets" just involve giving plants time, space, dirt and good light. I'm afraid there isn't much else to it.

As for the Hygro sp. 'Araguaia'... I'm not actually sure. The pot is kind of buried in the back corner of one of my indoor bins and I don't often take it out to look at it. I do have live stems, though, so if it's just a specimen you're after, seeds aren't necessary. Mine had a major dieback last fall (the shorter photoperiod/cooler air probably triggered something), but it recovered when I brought it inside for the winter.

I may not have flowered L. sphaerocarpa myself, but here's a link to some photos of it in bloom on the CT Botanical Society's website. L. sphaerocarpa is in fact native to my home state of Connecticut, but it's endangered here, so I had to bring in a specimen from elsewhere to grow it.


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## asukawashere

Holy sweet beloved sunlight, spring has sprung. It hit 82 degrees outdoors yesterday, a meteorological feat which caused me to leave the greenhouse door open for the first time this year (at least during the day; I buttoned it up before sundown). I'm feeling energized for the first time in months (clearly I am the poster child for SAD) and have actually been up and about doing stuff for the past few days, despite the expected post-NEC convention burnout.

Speaking of the NEC, things went brilliantly, except for a bit of an A/V snafu during my workshop, which I solved by talking less and letting the participants get their hands dirty ASAP. Also, I had a table at the Saturday banquet. People actually signed up to sit at a table with me, despite the presence of many other veteran aquarium hobbyists like Lee Finley and Charles Clapsaddle. I thought that was pretty cool, especially considering that, if I wasn't dining with a table of my own, I'd totally pick any of the other speakers over someone like me any day. On the other hand, I live with me 24/7, so I suppose I'm naturally inclined to find me boring. Anyway, I digress.

I'm seeing some interesting results from my experiments with overwintering plants out in the greenhouse. Specifically, a few that I expected better wintering from didn't make it, while a few others that I didn't totally expect did.

For one, those sites/catalogs going on about Zephyranthes candida being hardy to zone 5 or 6? I call BS on that. Every single bulb I left in my greenhouse (out of the wind and in zone 6B, the _warmer_ part of zone 6) was smelly mush when I took apart the pots to look for live plants. Fortunately I only left half of them out there, and the other half is growing strong indoors.

The Lobelia species (L. cardinalis and L. siphilitica), which are native, have yet to show signs of growth, though the latter produced plenty of seeds I can regrow it from should the need arise and I have indoor cuttings of the former. I'm rather hoping they're a lot like my Hibiscus, which always manage to convince me they've finally died this year and then mysteriously revive themselves in late May. Also no sign of sprouting from my other natives, like Gratiola aurea and Lindernia dubia, and given the lack of sighting them outdoors thus far, I'm also attributing that to it being too early-perhaps they sprout according to photoperiod or barometric shifts rather than warmth.

Meanwhile, Eleocharis sp. 'Belem' has proved itself hardy, left out in an aquarium on the upper shelf of the greenhouse. Look at all the new leaves popping up from last year's dried out growth:








This isn't much of a shocker, as so many Eleocharis are temperate species and abundant growth of similar dwarf varieties can be found in local waterways.

Two non-native Persicaria species not only reseeded (which was expected) but have proven to be strong perennial growers, with well-formed shoots already growing out of the base of last year's stems. I'm not so shocked about P. sp. 'Kawagoeanum' which, if the name is actually indicative of its origins, hails from a part of Japan that experiences a regularly snowy winter similar to our own. Here's some if its first growth this year:








Above you can see the established, large shoot from an old stem surrounded by new growth from seed-P. sp. 'Kawagoeanum' is an extremely prolific flowerer and produces seeds at a faster rate than I can even think of collecting them. It is, IMO, just about _the_ easiest aquatic plant to grow from seed. I would not be shocked if seeds got into other pots or even the floor of the greenhouse and start sprouting-something I'll have to keep a watchful eye out for.

I was less confident in my decision to leave outdoors my P. sp. Sao Paulo, which is sourced from a subtropical area of Brazil that hasn't recorded snow in nearly 100 years.
Nonetheless, it's proved itself quite durable, producing new shoots with the same vigor as the 'Kawagoeanum:'








...but little seed growth thus far, on account of the fact that it produced a fraction of the flowers the 'Kawagoeanum' did, and those infloresences were far less inclined to produce alarming quantities of seed. I did collect a few seeds of this plant, though, which I recently sent out in a trade for some garden veggies-given the parent plant's survival, I have no need of them myself.

I did not, however, leave any of my P. praetermissa outdoors as far as I recall-something I could kick myself for now, as it would have been fascinating to see if it wintered over as well as the others. Oh well. There's always next winter.

I'm leaving for SC the day after tomorrow-we are, however, stopping over in VA overnight so my little sister can squint at Virginia Tech on Saturday and decide whether we can ship her there next year for education in the fine arts of getting drunk and acting like a moron. So I won't actually be on the beach 'til Sunday. Maybe VA Tech will have a pond I can raid.


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## neilshieh

looking good! 

i also noticed that with my persicaria species, p. kawagoeanum went to seed and produced seeds with high germination rate. i've gotten seeds from hydropiperoides and sao paolo but have yet to have them germinate :/ maybe they weren't fertilized correctly or dried properly or something....

some other plants i also found very easy to germinate from seeds:
staurogyne bihar
hygrophila lancea
and lindernia sp. india

lindernia sp. india has extremeley small seeds and when i grew it, there'd be hundreds of plantlets growing on the walls due to condensation.

wish i took some pictures of my hygrophila lancea starting from seed :/

i have yet to sow my other seeds, perhaps when school gets less busy....
here are some of my seedling pictures ^-^
hygrophila lancea plantlet


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## asukawashere

It might be that P. sp. 'Sao Paulo isn't self-fertile and needs another genetically distinct plant to produce viable seeds, but given the tendency for Persicaria to spread vegetatively on a large scale (resulting in huge patches of genetically identical plants), I would think it unlikely. On the other hand, it's flowers do stay open a heck of a lot longer than my other Persicaria spp., which would be the case if it needs another plant to fertilize it—have to give those bees and beetles time to fly from one spot to the next.

I keep my P. hydropiperoides out in the pond, since it's native and all, so I haven't the foggiest clue what it does with regard to seeds. I do know that its inflorescence is structurally more similar to P. sp. 'Sao Paulo' than P. sp. 'Kawagoeanum' though.

I'm still not convinced your H. lancea is H. lancea, Neil. It doesn't look very lance-ish.

Did you sterilize the soil you used for germinating the Stauro sp. 'Bihar' or just stick it in a jar and watch them grow? That is one of the species I want to start from seed this year, so I should really get to preparing it as soon as I return from vacation.


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## neilshieh

Interesting theory, atm im done with persicarias since they grow too fast and get out of hand  the P. Porto Velho you gave me is really pretty though, really leggy growth compared to the other species of persicarias though.

I'm positive that this is H. Lancea, the bottom of the seedling is starting to become the woody brown of the adult Lancea but who knows, we'll see in a couple of months. I have the mature H. Lancea for sure and my first batch of seeds have grown into the same plant and this was a smaller seedling that got pulled when i took down my 46, the other seedlings also looked like this when they were young and eventually developed the woody stems with the long slender leaves. I'll take pictures of this one later.

btw... the gratiola i had was brevifolia, it was just a small plant. it has since then grown and the leaves are definitely teethed. 

I don't sterilize my soil and honestly i don't like germinating seeds in soil, it's so messy since fungus starts growing but with turface, i get a film of algae up top if theres too much water. cynabacteria is plaguing my c. longicauda plantlets right now 

what i really want are anubias seeds


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## asukawashere

So, I've returned from vacation and have been playing with new planty things. Some of what I obtained at the NEC convention is growing out, and the first of the lot to flower is the following:



This is Clinopodium cf. brownei. I'm not sure why, after so many years, there's still a cf. attached to this plant (it's certainly not difficult to flower, and I'm far from the first to do so), but if I make a couple pressings and mail them out, is there anybody who can confirm the ID of this so we can eliminate one more uncertainty from the hobby?

On a more boggish note, my sole carnivorous bog plant (assuming you don't count Utricularia gibba), acquired at the NEC from Todd Gardner, has also decided to bloom for me. Look at the pretty flower:

I don't know what species the plant is (it didn't come with a tag and they were auctioning them really quickly), but it's some variation on a Sarracenia. Possibly S. pupurea or a hybrid thereof. Not my area of expertise, but it looked like a fun thing to try, and it apparently likes me enough to make a pretty flower. 

Also, a third Persicaria has decided to demonstrate its winter hardiness! Unfortunately I'm not sure which it is. It's clearly either P. praetermissa or P. sp. 'Porto Velho', but seeing as I didn't even know I had it in the same tub as the P. sp. 'Sao Paulo', I really couldn't say which LOL. Oh well. The thrust of the matter is that Persicaria are a bunch of really hardy plants.

More flowers coming soon... and even sooner if anyone's interested in seeing repeat blooms of species I've posted here before.


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## Zapins

Wow thats great looking. Show us a picture of its leaves?


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## miremonster

The overwintering (without frost?) Persicarias are really surprising, as most species are allegedly annuals - at least in the nature -, e.g. Persicaria kawagoeana and P. praetermissa (still as Polygonum) in Flora of China: 
http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=242339687
http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=242339580

With the exception of Persicaria amphibia, also the whole central European Persicaria stuff is annual (P. maculosa, hydropiper, lapathifolia, minor, dubia).


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## asukawashere

Oh, there was definitely frost. Lots n' lots of frosting, at least overnight. Daytime temps probably made it above freezing all or almost all the time, but the greenhouse doesn't have nearly enough thermal mass to stay that way overnight.

Not sure about the European species, but Persicaria around here (including P. hydropiperoides) winter over regularly enough (otherwise there just couldn't be so much growth around ponds in the early spring). Some of the invasive species might be annual; I don't pay them much attention because they're mostly lawn weeds. You can tell the new seedlings from the returning growth easily, though—size differences aside, the older growth doesn't have the opposite cotyledons.


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## miremonster

OK, now I've checked Persicaria (sect. Persicaria) in Flora of North America (efloras.org), and indeed, there are several other species except P. amphibia considered as perennials in N America, among them Persicaria hydropiperoides. In Germany till now I've found only seedlings of the native Persicarias (others than amphibia) outdoors during spring.


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## asukawashere

Huh, go figure. I don't think there's too much of a climate difference between Germany and the northern U.S., so I wonder why Persicaria over there don't also winter over...


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## miremonster

Most European Persicaria species are also in the Flora of North America where these except P. amphibia are characterized as annuals as well. I could imagine that e.g. P. hydropiperoides would thrive and behave as perennial also in C Europe (could make a nice neophyte, perhaps  ), and I think that wanting perennial P. species here aren't a matter of the present climate but of biogeography and earth history. A comparable case may be the depauperate native tree and shrub flora in Central Europe, compared to climatically similar regions of Eastern N America and, much more, East Asia. Is explained by extinction during last glacials of the ice age - not enough suitable refugiums in the south, and the Alps and the Mediterranean as migration barriers.


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## asukawashere

With the greenhouse back in full swing, I'm out to acquire all manner of new specimens to play with. Just got some new stems yesterday from AaronT that I need to plant, and was literally _just_ about to go do that a few minutes ago when all of a sudden the sky opened up and started pouring. Ah, summer weather! So I figure while I wait out the rain, I'll share this exciting development with everyone:









The long-awaited inflorescence of my rare aroid, Piptospatha sp. 'Kalimantan', finally got around to opening up. As you can see in the last 2 photos, "open" is something of a relative term in this case. Nonetheless, I'm hoping the photos and specimen(s) eventually help in securing a firm ID for this plant. This spathe was clipped and placed in a jar of alcohol to preserve it (although unfortunately the tip of the spathe started to decay before I managed to clip it... turns out there was no alcohol in the house and I had to wait 'til the next day to go out and buy a bottle of it -_-'). There's another bud forming, though, so hopefully I'll get a perfect specimen next time. Just hoping all this flowering doesn't detract too much from the plant's growth rate, because I'd like to divide it as soon as possible if only to avoid having all my eggs in one basket... or pot, as the case may be.


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## AaronT

Nice one Amanda. I have parakensis, but have yet to have it divide. I got an inflorescence on it, but didn't realize it until I accidentally snipped it while trimming something else. Doh!


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## asukawashere

Dang. I would've been heartbroken if something like that happened to me.

My parakensis has 3 leaves each the size of my pinky nail. This is an improvement over the 2 leaves I received it with sometime late last fall. I suspect it'll be a long while before it flowers for me.  In the mean time, I think I'll work on your Limnophila. 

The sp. 'Kalimantan' just keeps teasing me. It's had the very beginnings of a new rhizome offshoot for a few months now, but can't seem to muster up the effort to grow something large enough to split off.


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## neilshieh

My parakensis has been doing really well in my setup. The small one that I got has since then put out adult sized leaves. The other parakensis I've had for over a year and a half is just sitting in a tennis ball container since i don't have any space for it  atleast it's alive and growing haha.

Did you get get around to obtaining a stem of ludwigia glandulosa x palustris?
I got 3 stems through a trade and I'm trying to figure out if I have enough room lol


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## AaronT

I'm growing my parakensis submersed and it's actually quite large, which is why I find it weird it hasn't split yet.


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## neilshieh

AaronT said:


> I'm growing my parakensis submersed and it's actually quite large, which is why I find it weird it hasn't split yet.


yeah same here, my large plant just keeps putting out leaves from the center and becoming larger. No sign of daughter plants :/


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## asukawashere

Do we even know for sure how P. parakensis propagates? It does strike me as having more of a crown than the branching, Anubias-like rhizomes of P. sp. 'Kalimantan'...



neilshieh said:


> Did you get get around to obtaining a stem of ludwigia glandulosa x palustris?
> I got 3 stems through a trade and I'm trying to figure out if I have enough room lol


Yeah, I've got two stems in one of my high-humidity tanks right now. Once they convert to fully emersed form, I'll try to acclimate them to the lower humidity in the greenhouse.


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## asukawashere

Here are a couple new blooms from the greenhouse:









Bacopa monnieri 'crenata' is very similar to the hobby staple B. monnieri, but with slightly larger, more jagged leaves.









Samolus valerandi, a locally native tidal creek plant, displays tiny white flowers on leggy racemes.

And a souvenir from CAPE's meeting last weekend, here are some photos of wild Elodea canadensis in bloom:
















Apologies for the blurriness of the above photos-I probably could have gotten better shots with my main camera and its macro lens, but seeing as I had to swim to get to the flowers, that wasn't going to happen-I took them with my waterproof camera instead. Speaking of the waterproof camera, here's a view of what was going on underneath those tiny surface flowers: Underwater Video


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## Cavan Allen

Where did you get _Bacopa crenata_?


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## Zapins

Nice pics Amanda, where is that baby catfish video I took with your camera? I can host it on youtube if you want to send it to me.


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## asukawashere

Cavan Allen said:


> Where did you get _Bacopa crenata_?


2ManyHobbies. No idea where he got it. I should mention that I'm not totally convinced it's _real_ B. crenata, but it seems to match the European-market plant they're calling by that name. 


Zapins said:


> Nice pics Amanda, where is that baby catfish video I took with your camera? I can host it on youtube if you want to send it to me.


Already uploaded it to photobucket-look at the text link at the bottom of my last post.


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## miremonster

asukawashere said:


> I should mention that I'm not totally convinced it's _real_ B. crenata, but it seems to match the European-market plant they're calling by that name.


 I guess it's the B. monnieri form that's shown here: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/plant-id/88431-what-plant.html#post658352
As emersed plant it has a more jagged margin. The company Dennerle sold that B. monnieri variant as B. monnieri with an affix that I've forgotten, it may be found in older catalogs.
Many pics in the internet show apparently that toothed B. monnieri form as "crenata".

The Bacopa crenata shown in the Kasselmann book looks clearly different. (these images are taken from the book: http://www.gibell.com/aquarium-plants-3/images/4277_103_107-bacopa-crenata.jpg)


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## asukawashere

You're probably right, miremonster. It doesn't match the flower in the Kasselmann book you provided, and the flower I have is more consistent with B. monnieri. Nonetheless, the foliage does differ significantly from my "typical" B. monnieri plants—the plant is noticeably larger and the leaves do have a more toothed margin. I'll take a comparison photo of both stems one of these days. I suppose I'll change its designation to B. monnieri 'crenata' to prevent confusion.

I wonder how these two forms stack up against the B. monnieri 'Type 1' and 'Type 2' being offered by Extraplant.


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## miremonster

asukawashere said:


> the plant is noticeably larger


OK, I didn't notice that yet on the toothed monnieri that's available here in Europe. I could get hands on that plant to check that.
However, I don't know which Bacopa species are most similar to monnieri, and if other species are possible.



asukawashere said:


> I wonder how these two forms stack up against the B. monnieri 'Type 1' and 'Type 2' being offered by Extraplant.


 Both plants differ from the toothed monnieri(?) by entire margin. The Type I is a plant with rather roundish leaves. Type II puzzles me. Maybe "typical" monnieri. But there's also a B. m. 'Compact' with the same longish, spathulate leaf form (the same plant was introduced erroneously as Hedyotis salzmannii by Dennerle). I've mailed the extraplant shop owner, we'll see.

Furthermore there's a B. monnieri II from Dennerle http://www.dennerle.eu/de/index.php?option=com_pflanzendatenbank&pdbSearch=&aid=49, I don't know it.

Extraplant has also B. crenata, likely correctly labeled: http://www.extraplant.com/bacopa-crenata.html


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## miremonster

p.s.
I've read Stephan's descriptions again, now it's clear to me: http://blog.extraplant.com/bacopa-monnieri-‘type-i’-and-‘type-ii’.html
Extraplant's Bacopa monnieri Type II = Tropica's B. monnieri 'Compact' = Dennerle's erroneous Hedyotis salzmannii.

Dennerle's B. monnieri II: http://www.aqua-magica.de/fettblatt.html is different from Type II  and I guess it might be the toothed monnieri (teeth less pronounced on submersed leaves), or a "typical" monnieri... However the plant in the aqua-magica pics seems to be not very different from extraplant's Type I (plasticity?).

Extraplant's B. monnieri Type I is called B. monnieri "Rundblättrig" in the Flowgrow database.


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## asukawashere

Thanks for all the info, miremonster! Sounds like you've got 3 or 4 different variants on B. monnieri in Europe. It amazes me how you guys manage to cultivate a greater variety of forms of a U.S. native plant than we have available here LOL.


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## Cavan Allen

asukawashere said:


> Thanks for all the info, miremonster! Sounds like you've got 3 or 4 different variants on B. monnieri in Europe. It amazes me how you guys manage to cultivate a greater variety of forms of a U.S. native plant than we have available here LOL.


It's found all over the place, just not the US. Probably the most widespread _Bacopa_.


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## asukawashere

I know it also occurs all over Asia and the Americas, but where else? I've never heard of it being in Europe.


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## miremonster

Hi together,
the source of these monnieri forms in the European trade are likely nurseries in Asia. E.g., Stephan from extraplant obtained the "Type I" from a Singaporean nursery (he told me that he himself named it "Type I").

Occurrence in the wild:
as far as I've read, also in the U.S.: http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=BAMO I remember to have seen it when I was in SW Florida in 1995.
Only now I've found info that Bacopa monnieri grows as rice weed also in Europe, in the Mediterranean area: http://www.herbmedit.org/bocconea/16-0745.pdf

Interestingly they write here that several B. m. accessions collected in India showed differences in morphology and growth properties: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/gres/2001/00000048/00000006/00336190


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## asukawashere

Thanks for the extra research.  Seems B. monnieri is getting around if it's invading Europe, too!

As promised, here's a side-by-side photo of the regular monnieri and the "crenata"








As you can see, the "fake crenata" on the left is substantially bigger than the standard B. monnieri on the right. They are growing in different tubs, but the conditions are more or less comparable (same growing medium, fertilized concurrently, same greenhouse). If pressed, I'd suppose the "crenata" monnieri gets a little less light, but not by much.

As for the rest of the greenhouse, here are some new things to look at:


This flower actually is from late June, but I missed uploading it before. Lysimachia nummularia usually blooms in earlier June, but came late this year (along with a bunch of other flowers) due to an unusually cool spring. This is the wild type, which I only have in a couple pots-as opposed to the overgrown swaths of the 'Aurea' cultivar infesting my yard. 


Gratiola virginiana continually thwarts my efforts to photograph its open flower.


Gratiola viscidula proves itself much more cooperative.


Alternanthera reineckii 'Variegated' has rosanervig-style foliage with a lot of color, but its flower is identical to the common form of the plant-a fuzzy white tuft.


Hygrophila lancea looks markedly similar to all the other Hygrophila species I've posted flower pics of.


Echinodorus x 'Altlandsberg' has big, showy white blooms. This thing throws out scapes left and right, but the resulting plantlets are obnoxiously slow to root themselves...


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## asukawashere

Hey look, I'm not letting this thread die! XD

Anyway, I'm coming out of winter hibernation mode (which should have happened like a month ago except that SPRING WAS NOT GETTING HERE >.<

So, with that complaint properly lodged, I will note that I have started some new emersed plants that I obtained at the NEC convention, mostly originating from Kris Weinhold, who was there as a speaker. I also brought back a few goodies from my trip to Myrtle Beach, SC, including Ludwigia repens and what's probably Ludwigia alata. Between that and the wide variety of Ludwigia species I got from Kris, I'm going to have to see if I can't hybridize something in the greenhouse this summer.

Michael visited the other day, and together we put down some landscape fabric all over the greenhouse floor. Hopefully this will lead to a significant reduction in weed troubles this year. The last thing I need is grass outgrowing my aquatic pretties.

I've been slowly migrating tubs and tanks of tropical emersed stuff outdoors, and will probably tear down my emersed rack completely next week in favor of letting everything stay in the greenhouse for the summer. It doesn't look like there's a freeze anywhere on the 10-day forecast, and even if there is a light frost, the greenhouse stays a couple degrees warmer than the outside temp. So, I should be safe for the year.

I'll get some photos of the greenhouse soon (starting this evening, the forecast looks pretty miserable for the next few days, but whenever the sun returns I'll hop to it), but in the mean time, I do have a few photos of flowers from over the winter to share:

Floscopa scandens:




Lagenandra thwaitesii (this is the first Lagenandra I've ever flowered... mind you, I only own two species, so it's not like I've had many chances to try)


Here's a closer look at the throat:


Hopefully I'll have more flowers to share in the near future!


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## neilshieh

beautiful blooms! 
Do you ever have problems with fungus? The spider webby looking ones. Any advice short of flooding as niko suggests? I'd flood my setup if I could but I have the plants growing in a tank not trays.


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## Zapins

Nice photos! Was that Lagenandra flower the one that was closed when I was there?

It looks a bit like my finger... >.<


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## asukawashere

Neil—I do get some fungus, as evidenced by the occasional fungus gnats that appear in my basement, but generally not to such a degree that it harms anything. Dead leaves fungus over and such, but the live ones aren't bothered. Can't really recommend any good alternatives to flooding, except reducing humidity.

Michael, the above Lagenandra spathe is from a couple months ago—as you noted, however, it is sending out another spathe.


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## asukawashere

Fun Update! Cavan has an ID on Bacopa sp. 'Japan' based on the pressing of this flower from October 2012:



asukawashere said:


> And for the first time, Bacopa sp. 'Japan' is offering some blooms:


...As you may have noticed if you recently checked the PlantFinder, B. sp. 'Japan' is actually B. serpyllifolia, a South American species (as in, not from Japan. But, since there _are_ no Bacopa native to Japan, we kinda already knew that...)


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## AaronT

Nice job on the Bacopa flower! We were thinking it might have been an innominata variety.


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## asukawashere

Cavan mentioned that once or twice—however, from what I gather from his comments (having never seen a flower from B. innominata myself), its stamens do not number four like the B. serpyllifolia's do.

Way back when I took the photo, I did note a strong resemblance to the inflorescence of B. salzmannii, which hails from the same part of the world at least. I was betting on either a regional variant or close relative of that species. Not sure how closely related B. serpyllifolia is to B. salzmannii (perhaps Cavan will elaborate), or how close B. innominata is to either, though. Certainly my pick is closer alphabetically! LOL


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## Cavan Allen

It is similar to salzmanii but its corollas extend beyond the calyx, it has coarse spreading whitish hairs on the stem instead of fine, yellowish ones, the corolla is a bit bigger (7mm vs 3-5), and the pedicel is a bit longer. Keys out perfectly to serpyllifolia. Except for corolla color, as I explained in the thread. Turns out there are also white and even pink flowered races, so I think we're in the clear. Light levels also influence that character.


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## Iggy8194

Quick question, what is the proper way to press flowers in order to preserve them? I just started my emmersed setup (check my thread out!) and was wondering, because I thought it would be a fantastic way to catalogue all you have or have had. Especially since you will have managed to get it to flower. 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk


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## neilshieh

Iggy8194 said:


> Quick question, what is the proper way to press flowers in order to preserve them? I just started my emmersed setup (check my thread out!) and was wondering, because I thought it would be a fantastic way to catalogue all you have or have had. Especially since you will have managed to get it to flower.
> 
> Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk


while I can't offer anything on pressing flowers collecting their seeds is a very rewarding way to keep track of your emersed collections.


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## Iggy8194

True, but I'm also not sure I will be able to get any either lol.


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## neilshieh

Iggy8194 said:


> True, but I'm also not sure I will be able to get any either lol.


just have fungus gnats or fruit flies in your setup. They do all the pollination for me. I know someone who took all the crypts that had sent up a spathe and put them into one flat with a bunch of fruit/fungus flies and got crypt seeds.


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## Iggy8194

Again great point, and if they come of their own accord I won't bother them, but I doubt I will introduce any sort of insect purposefully. My trays are in a living area, well more of a hallway, but still no place for bugs. Though I bet that's what my roommates think of my setup lolol.


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## asukawashere

Pressing flowers is easy-all you do is get a sheet of paper (fairly absorbent stuff like cheap white construction paper is great, since it wicks away moisture, but you can use regular copy paper in a pinch-also, make sure it's white paper so dyes and whatnot don't leech onto your specimen). Fold the paper in half with the flower cutting sandwiched in the middle, find a hefty book, stick it in the middle and shut it. Ignore for several weeks and voila! A dried, pressed flower. You can then mount them on archival paper with bits of linen tape or a tiny bit of archival glue if you want to store them long-term. Remember when you're pressing to write on the paper what plant it came from! Keeping labels with plants at all times is very important.

...I often go flipping through my larger aquarium tomes and am surprised by random pressings falling out, actually. XD I couldn't remember which book I stuck the Bacopa in for a long while, which is why it took me about a year and a half to get the specimen to Cavan LOL.

Fungus gnats are nigh impossible to prevent in an emersed setup, btw, so don't worry too much about pollination-it's bound to happen at some point! If you want an easy flower, try something like Persicaria sp. 'Kawagoeanum'-you would have to actively work to _stop_ it from flowering, and it readily produces seed with a great germination rate.


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## asukawashere

As the greenhouse is officially in grow!mode, I figured I better get to documenting inflorescences:









Ludwigia x lacustris has more or less apetalous flowers, much like its parent L. palustris, but the sepals are more elongate than pure L. palustris, which has rather stubby sepals. L. x lacustris sometimes does produce tiny petals, but rarely in a complete set.









Meanwhile, if this Ludwigia simpsonii x repens ever had petals, I never saw them. That doesn't necessarily rule out the possibility-Ludwigia do tend to drop their petals after a little while-but I kinda think by now I'd have seen some. Who knows?









Just in case you were despairing of ever seeing petals on a Ludwigia, here's L. repens I collected from my April trip to the Myrtle Beach area.









Here's the Gratiola virginiana I brought back from NC (we had to pass through NC to get home from SC!)-it was flowering when I collected it, and promptly resumed as soon as the transplant shock wore off. 

Here's an oddity I noticed with my Lindernia dubia-this plant is one of those prolific reseeding menaces that somehow appears in every other pot of dirt I let sit out over the winter. Usually it looks like this:








Generally ovate leaves with a dully pointed tip and a slightly toothed margin, smallish pale lavender flowers, etc.

However, in one pot, this oddball popped up:








As you can see, the leaves are substantially longer, far less tapered, and even occasionally round at the tips, with more prominently toothed margins. Even the flowers are twice the size of the other L. dubia (which makes them small instead of tiny LOL).

The second plant is still in keeping with the description of L. dubia in general-populations of which have varying leaf size, shape, margins, and flower size-but this hasn't shown up in any of my L. dubia population before. I'm wondering if it came in as a contaminant from some other plant I collected, or if it's just a spontaneous mutation. The two are growing in the same tub in the same dirt with the same sunlight, so no variables on that front.

I wonder if they look different submersed...

...While I'm at it, I should totally try and cross the L. dubia with my L. grandiflora!


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## asukawashere

On the less floral side of things, here are some photos of my assortment of things growing out:









Ludwigia inclinata var. inclinata I got from Kris Weinhold at the NEC Convention. It's converted nicely to emersed form and is putting on some mass.









Ludwigia palustris in a swamp of the homemade variety. There are a few sprigs of Persicaria sp. 'Kawagoeanum' mixed in there, too. Both are very hardy plants, so this is a tub that stays out in the greenhouse all winter.









A bunch of new L. palustris seedlings popping up in the back corner of the same tub.









This shallow tub is filled with specimens I acquired at the NEC Convention (including that L. inclinata). Oh, and some Lindernia dubia (see previous post) because it likes to randomly pop up everywhere.









A plastic shoebox is growing me a carpet of Hemianthus glomeratus... the bit of Rotala rotundifolia to the right was a stray contaminant in the bag of HG I picked up at a club auction.









Most of this tub is filled with stuff I brought back from Myrtle Beach. The back left corner, however, is a mystery plant that I think shows promise as a new introduction to the hobby...no, you can't have any until I figure out what the heck is actually is.


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## asukawashere

On a boggier front, behold this lovely jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) that grows wild in a very damp area of my property:









And a far-from-aquatic garden succulent I just couldn't resist sharing, my hen and chicks (Sempervivum) "hen" is flowering:

It's a really awesome flower, though at the end of the flowering and fruiting, this mother plant will die (perhaps the genus should be Semper-until-it-flowers-vivum?). New plants may grow from seeds, but as anyone who's grown hen and chicks will know, the mother plant also threw off a bajillion plantlets (the "chicks") before it flowered.


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## Bert H

Very nice! Out of curiosity, do you keep the greenhouse going in the wintertime? You have so many specimens, it seems like you would.


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## asukawashere

Hi Bert, thanks for the compliments! I don't heat the greenhouse in the winter as it's too small and would be prohibitively expensive. Were I independently wealthy, I'd perhaps consider it—but then again, if I were independently wealthy I'd've just put a conservatory addition onto the house and not stuck a hobby greenhouse in the yard LOL. Instead, I bring the tropicals indoors for the winter and keep them in tubs/trays on a plant rack in the fishroom—the hardy stuff does get to stay out in the greenhouse, but I let it go dormant for the cold season.


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## Tanan

I am so in love with this thread! This is one thread where I can see SO MANY plants growing emersed with good ids. I have recently had some very bad luck with emersed plants which turned out to be non aquatic so this post really helps a lot. I do wish you will also post clear pics of leaves too with flowers. 
Also please check your PM.


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## miremonster

asukawashere said:


> However, in one pot, this oddball popped up:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> As you can see, the leaves are substantially longer, far less tapered, and even occasionally round at the tips, with more prominently toothed margins. Even the flowers are twice the size of the other L. dubia (which makes them small instead of tiny LOL).
> 
> The second plant is still in keeping with the description of L. dubia in general-populations of which have varying leaf size, shape, margins, and flower size-but this hasn't shown up in any of my L. dubia population before. I'm wondering if it came in as a contaminant from some other plant I collected, or if it's just a spontaneous mutation. The two are growing in the same tub in the same dirt with the same sunlight, so no variables on that front.


It seems to me that the 2nd plant matches that L. dubia, naturalized in Japan (pictures at the bottom): http://flowers.la.coocan.jp/Linderniaceae/Lindernia dubia.htm

Could the 1st Lindernia dubia (with the smaller flowers) have something to do with L. dubia var. anagallidea? But it seems that the flower stalks don't exceed the leaves in length. 
http://www.maine.gov/dacf/mnap/features/lindernia_dubia.pdf


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## asukawashere

Hey mire, thanks for chiming in. I do agree that the 2nd version of L. dubia is fairly consistent with the Asian population, but again, the appearance of the foliage is quite variable—I don't think there's reason to suspect a contamination from that route... but on the other hand, a stray seed could easily have stuck to a specimen I collected from elsewhere in the US, as I have natives from all up and down the eastern seaboard. Perhaps my hypothetical contaminant shares an origin with Japan's naturalized population?

L. dubia var. anagallidea, as I understand it, is defined mostly by the flower petioles as you noted. Solely based on that characteristic, both my plants would key out to L. dubia var. dubia.

Tanan, thanks for the kind words. I'll make an effort to include some more foliage photos in the future—but I have to say that flowers really intrigue me the most. 

Meanwhile, in the greenhouse, I haven't been able to do much the past few days as some pretty vicious (by New England standards) thunderstorms have been sweeping in every day as soon as I got back from work. I can. however, note that L. simpsonii and L. simpsonii x repens do, in fact, have flower petals—albeit tiny ones.

Despite raining out one of America's favorite outdoor holidays on us, the recent downpouring is actually a much-needed event—prior to last Wednesday, there'd been a two-week-plus stretch with no rain, in hot June sun. I was getting tired of manually watering the garden LOL.


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## miremonster

asukawashere said:


> (...) Perhaps my hypothetical contaminant shares an origin with Japan's naturalized population?


 Yes, perhaps more likely than a re-introduction from Asia. Who knows how that species varies across its whole areal that reaches down to Chile.
Now I recall that Lindernia dubia is also introduced in Germany, mainly along the Elbe river (I want to go there...). The photo on Floraweb shows a plant looking rather like the 1st L. dubia form: 
http://www.floraweb.de/pflanzenarten/foto.xsql?suchnr=3434

Interestingly Lindernia procumbens (Europe, Asia) is considered to be indigenous in Germany, few places: http://www.floraweb.de/pflanzenarten/foto.xsql?suchnr=3435 Surely nobody has come up with the idea of trying that in a tank. But it's already introduced to North America, so there are good chances that this will happen...  http://bonap.net/MapGallery/County/Lindernia procumbens.png


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