# Bacopa sp. 'Colorata' Flowers



## travis (Oct 5, 2004)

Emergent flowers of _Bacopa sp. 'Colorata'_ with Elatine orientalis and Ceratopteris richardii growing emergent in background. I apologize, my camera is broken so I took this with my cell phone which does not allow any close focus shots.


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## Crispino Ramos (Mar 21, 2008)

I'd like to try growing plants emersed. How do I start?


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## ashappard (Jun 3, 2006)

nice crop of emergent plants.
good work.

that Bacopa seems to be covered in flowers.


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## ashappard (Jun 3, 2006)

Crispino Ramos said:


> I'd like to try growing plants emersed. How do I start?


check out Zapins recent thread. Its simple and cheap.
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...929-beginner-s-guide-starting-your-first.html

many of us just let the plants break the surface of a submerged setup and dont have a dedicated emersed setup.


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## hooha (Apr 21, 2005)

beautiful pic for a camera phone....you got some $1000 phone or something? 

what is the plant with the colored borders in the background?

The flowers remind me of a question I've had - the flowers look very much like Bacopa caroliniana - is 'Colorata' possibly a variant of B. caroliniana?


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

hooha said:


> The flowers remind me of a question I've had - the flowers look very much like Bacopa caroliniana - is 'Colorata' possibly a variant of B. caroliniana?


Possibly. Is it aromatic? Any chance you can send me some flowering stems Travis?


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## travis (Oct 5, 2004)

Cavan - unfortunately I trimmed back the emergent growth about a week ago to rescape the tank. I will flower some more stems and get you some samples.


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## travis (Oct 5, 2004)

And it was not aromatic. At least I could not smell anything noticeable, although my sense of smell is not the greatest.


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

OK, cool. I'll look forward to it. Thanks!

Unfortunately, we know absolutely nothing about its origin. That would really help. Anyone?


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## travis (Oct 5, 2004)

hooha said:


> beautiful pic for a camera phone....you got some $1000 phone or something?
> 
> what is the plant with the colored borders in the background?


The phone I've got has a 2MP camera which doesn't take bad pics for a cell phone, but the lens is unfortunately no better than any other cell phone.

The plant you're referring to in the background is _Ceratopteris richardii_. It has an amazingly variable leaf shape, and the coloration you see is likely due to submersed culture emerging and dying off. The emergent leaves eventually take on the more pinnate(?) form you see above and to the right of the wider leaves.


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## travis (Oct 5, 2004)

Here's another picture that shows a flower a little better. There is also some _Polygonum sp. 'Sao Paulo'_ (blurry) in the lower-right foreground that has flowered and gone to seed.


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## miremonster (Mar 26, 2006)

Looks nice!


travis said:


> The plant you're referring to in the background is _Ceratopteris richardii_. It has an amazingly variable leaf shape, and the coloration you see is likely due to submersed culture emerging and dying off. The emergent leaves eventually take on the more pinnate(?) form you see above and to the right of the wider leaves.


 That's interesting, I've read that C. richardii is difficult to distinguish from the C. thalictroides/cornuta complex, mainly by number of spores per sporangium and chromosome number. Where did You get the plant from, and how did You get the information that it is C. richardii?


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## travis (Oct 5, 2004)

miremonster said:


> Looks nice!
> That's interesting, I've read that C. richardii is difficult to distinguish from the C. thalictroides/cornuta complex, mainly by number of spores per sporangium and chromosome number. Where did You get the plant from, and how did You get the information that it is C. richardii?


I received it from a student at a local college who had cultured it as part of botany/horticulture class. We weren't sure how suitable it would be in submersed culture but, like _C. thalictroides_, it proved to be quite a monster of a plant. It quickly grew out of the top of my 125G and hit two feet tall in a few months.


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## miremonster (Mar 26, 2006)

OK, thank You! I guess C. richardii may also occur undetected among plants called C. cornuta or thalictroides in the aquarium hobby.
The geneticists have established C. richardii as a "model organism".


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

Just beautiful!


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## travis (Oct 5, 2004)

miremonster said:


> OK, thank You! I guess C. richardii may also occur undetected among plants called C. cornuta or thalictroides in the aquarium hobby.
> The geneticists have established C. richardii as a "model organism".


I'm curious what is meant by "model organism". Is it used a reference species for the complex?

And thanks for the compliments guys


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## hydrophyte (Mar 1, 2009)

wow, that first shot is especially nice. can you show us the whole tank?


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## travis (Oct 5, 2004)

Unfortunately I have removed all of the emerged growth and am in the process of rescaping the tank so there isn't much to show. I don't believe I took any full tank shots with emerged growth.


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## hydrophyte (Mar 1, 2009)

:crybaby:


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## miremonster (Mar 26, 2006)

travis said:


> I'm curious what is meant by "model organism". Is it used a reference species for the complex?


 That are species as examples for other species or organism groups and particularly suitable for extensive studies of diverse biological phenomena (genetics, physiology, development,...) , e.g. Drosophila and Tribolium for insects, mouse for mammals incl. human, Ceratopteris for ferns, Arabidopsis for flowering plants, the sea slug Aplysia for neurobiological studies, etc.
Mostly they are easy to breed or to cultivate and have a short life cycle. 
See also here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_organism
http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/library/cfern/cfern.bio.utk.edu/resource/toc.html


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