# When and under what conditions do your crypts bloom?



## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

For me, my walkeri blooms in the spring (April). My Cordata bloomed once in October year before last, and has not bloomed since. My crypts---even the emrse ones--- don't bloom in the room with most of my tanks probably because the tank lights are on 16 hours, giving everything short nights. Those crypts of mine that do bloom are on windowsills and get daylight uncontaminated by room light. I have two varieties of wendtii that have never bloomed on the same windowsill as the walkeri, but the wendtii are in soda pop bottles, and I think that the mild plastic poisoning keeps them unhealthy enough that they don't bloom. The walkeri plants are in a glass jar.


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## Xema (Mar 24, 2004)

Mines are blooming on spring and autum (wendtii, willissi, undulata). But the more explosive blooming allways is done when i repoting the old plants. At the moment only have lucky with sri-lanka crypts, i wait have more luck this summer with another species like pontederiifolia, crispatulas, parva, and so on.

I think the high temp. and the numer of ligth hour is quite importat to bloom, but i had some blooming with undulatas in winter with short days.


Greeting from spain


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

Can we conclude that most, maybe all, crypts do not bloom during the summer? Therefore, they must be long night plants---plants that are triggered to bloom only if the nights are longer than some period of time. Then the next question is why do some of them bloom in the spring, rather than in the fall or midwinter? Xema, Do some of your crypts bloom in the fall or do they all bloom in the spring?


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## Phil Edwards (Jan 22, 2004)

Most of my crypts have bloomed on a 12/12 photoperiod, emersed or submerged. They may be long night plants, but being tropical I'd be curious how they'd get a longer night. 

That might be an interesting experiment for us to perform.

Regards,
Phil


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

For those crypts on the equator, there is a 12 hour photoperiod all year. If they are 5 degrees north, night length increases by 17 minutes in 'winter'. If they are 10 degrees north, night length increases by 35 minutes. (I got these numbers from an orchid culture site: http://www.orchidculture.com/COD/daylength.html#10N

I have read that at least some plants are sensitive enough to night length to distinguish differences of one minute (Campbell---Biology). One of my most reliable windowsill bloomers is C. walkeri, which has bloomed in April the last three years. Walkeri is from Sri Lanka which ranges from 6 degrees north to 9 degrees north.

It certainly seems, though, that a lot of the crypts are right on or very close to the equator, and for these, if they do bloom seasonally, blooming must be controlled by whether they are submersed or emersed, or something else relating to the rainy season or dry season.


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