# Can someone ID this small Crypt?



## Happy Camper (Jul 22, 2004)

Greetings NUTS :wink: 

Please take a look at the Pic below, Anyone got an idea of what kind of Crypt this is? Many thanks.

Kind Regards
Cameron James


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

My guess is C. petchii, the triploid form of C. becketttii.


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## Happy Camper (Jul 22, 2004)

*Cool Beans*



HeyPK said:


> My guess is C. petchii, the triploid form of C. becketttii.


WOW, and I get a response from the master himself  
Please excuse my complete ignorance here but what do you mean by 'Triploid form? 
Thanks a stack Paul, muchos appreciated.


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## budak (Mar 13, 2004)

Most multi-cellular organisms are diploid, i.e. they have paired chromosomes (humans have 23 pairs), which will divide during meiosis to become unpaired-chromosome (aka haploid) cells.... in more familiar terms: egg and sperm (in sex, each parent contributes 50% of his/her genetic soup to the offspring). Each chromosome in a diploid pair is "identical" to the other, but the corresponding versions (or alleles) of the genes they carry may be different variants - e.g. one of my diploid chromosomes could carry a gene allele for black hair, and the other for brown (what actually results depends on the alleles contributed by the mate). 

A few species of plants and animals are triploid or even polyploidic, meaning their chromosome can come in sets of 3 or more... this opens up a great deal more possibilities in how an organism and its offspring can look like or behave, and with plants (which frequently reproduce asexually), the rejiggling of 3 or more chromosome sets during mitosis (non-sexual division of cells) can result in a parent plant producing genetically divergent offspring (hence, the frequent and spontaneous occurence of new crypts/echinos/anubias varieties with differently shaped, coloured, patterned, sized foliage and forms. This is also why reproductive parts are vital for IDing plants; sexual organs (and cells) that are divergent will generally not succeed in creating new generations; hence, these tend to remain unchanged across generations and provide clues to a plant's ID and genotypic heritage.


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## Sue (Mar 19, 2004)

The scary thing is I understood all of Budaks post.

If you want to get into deeper explanations on ploidy look to some of the daylily and iris pages. If I wasn't dabbler of daylily pollen I'd probably be sitting there going "huh???".


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

Happy Camper wrote:



> WOW, and I get a response from the master himself


No way am I "the master". Perhaps the closest would be Jan Bastmeijer who will be at the upcoming AGA convention. See Jan's website, The Crypts Pages 
http://132.229.93.11/Cryptocoryne/index.html It is the premier website on crypts. Nothing else comes close.

Another master would be Neils Jacobsen who has done experiments in hybridizing crypts and who has also done a lot of the work determining chromosome numbers. Neils' work is largely responsible for the recent revisions of crypt taxonomy that are reflected in Kasselmann's book, Aquarium Plants.

Another upcoming master is Yujii Sasaki, who is connected in some way with Rayon Vert Aqua. He may be the owner, for all I know. He has found two new species in areas thought to have been worked over by other collectors. These two are given species status because they are considerably different from the other known crypts from these areas. He may have more new species than those two. He has a number of unknowns and you can buy one of his rare or unknown collected plants for $300 to $400. You may have to go to Japan to buy it. I don't know if he ships to America. If you go to the Rayon Vert Aqua web site, http://www.rva.ne.jp/main.htm, you will find it is in Japanese, but it has lots of pictures, and you can stumble around by clicking on anything that causes your cursor arrow to change into a hand. The site has endless picture galaries and, deep in these galaries, you can find a big bunch of pictures taken when Rayon Vert people visited Neils Jacobsen in Copenhagen

Dr. Shawn Prescott, owner of FishVet.com, has acquired a number of rare crypts, not otherwise available in America, and is working on getting tissue cultures of these plants going. If he is successful, he will be able to sell them cheap. Right now, he is selling them for up to $40.00, which is pretty cheap compared to Sasaki's rare crypts.

The taxonomy revision of crypts is in no way finished. It has a long way to go. Most of the crypt species we know were based on isolated specimens that were brought back by the early botanical explorers. They were given species status simply because they were different from the other isolated plants that were known. Now that new plants are coming in from a greater number of collectors, all kinds of intermediate plants are filling in the gaps that were originally used to differentiate the original species. There are now all kinds of plants that are intermediate. Jan Bastmeijer's pages show all this variation within a supposed species along with plants that appear to straddle two species and could be one or the other. One species merges into another. We are accustomed to believing that species are distinct, and that is true if you are only looking at plants or animals from one site. When you travel around and collect at different sites, this nice separation gets lost. I think that we may wind talking about crypt complexes, such as the C. wendtii complex or the C. beckettii complex. In any event, it will be a long time before it is all worked out.

Meanwhile, enjoy your crypts, and don't worry too much what species you have. Nobody knows, yet, and maybe no one will ever be able to separate all the crypts into definite species.


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## Happy Camper (Jul 22, 2004)

Hey Budac (Nice Nik 8) )

Thanks for the explanation, you've just given me some more goodies to research, :roll: Thanks Much.

Regards
Cameron James


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## Happy Camper (Jul 22, 2004)

Salutations Crypt Master Krombolz :twisted: 

Oh come on, quit with the whole humble mumbo jumbo and just accept it. If you're good you're good :wink: 

From where I'm sitting you most definitely sound like you know what you're doing and from researching various sites on the net I see your name crop up often, so I know you've been at this a while! I'm just starting out (just over a year) so I feel like a complete novice compared to you oh humble master of the Crypt Nuts pages...

Anyhoo, thanks a stack for the most informative reply, I'll take a look at some of those names you mentioned. $400 for a Crypt!!!....sheesh its hard to think that thats close to what I pay for Rent every month :shock: 

*Takes a bow* Your teachings and words of wisdom will serve me well Oh Crypt master Paul, may you have an interesting day and may your plants flourish in the land of green :wink: 

Kindest Regards
Cameron James


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## budak (Mar 13, 2004)

I can suggest two books for amateur botanists and aquarists wanting to understand the plasticity and adaptability of plants:

The Evolutionary Biology of Plants by Karl Niklas (he examines how various plant traits such as photosynthesis, polyploidy, eukaryotism... developed, and here it seems we owe much more to blue-green algae than most would suppose).

In Praise of Plants by Francis Halle (less a study than a peon to the wonders of plants, especially tropical species).


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## Happy Camper (Jul 22, 2004)

*Thank you*

Many Thanks Budac

Perhaps these books could be placed in my Xmas stocking this year :lol:

Kindest Regards
Cameron James


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