# C. affinis



## HeyPK

Regarding Illustrator's comments on C. affinis (post #3 in 'what's your favorite crypt?'), I also remember the C. affinis that was common back in the 1950's. The affinis variety available today is not nearly as nice looking. The 1950's variety had a dark, intense green to bluegreen leaf that was intense purple-red underneath. It was a relatively small plant. The colors of today's affinis are much less saturated. The leaf is olive green above and light pink to wine red below and never very intense. This plant also seems to be a lot larger, getting about 1 foot high when grown submersed.


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## Cvurb

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

Woah, I would LOVE to have any Affinis, but especially the C. Affinis 'old' LOL


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## EDGE

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

HeyPK,

Is the 'old' C. affinis you are referring to the older photos of C affinis on the Cryptocoryne page? and the olive green the photos near the top of the page?


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## Cvurb

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

How you described it sounds a lot like my C. Blassii though, almost exactly like it.


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## THHNguyen

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

Affinis is impossible to find these days... I only ever saw it once and only once. :/


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## HeyPK

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*



> Is the 'old' C. affinis you are referring to the older photos of C affinis on the Cryptocoryne page? and the olive green the photos near the top of the page?


Only two photos of affinis to my knowledge. I think they are both of the newer variety. I think I should amend my statement about the leaves of the newer variety being olive green. They are green, but not the kind of dark blue-green I saw in the old variety. I was just a kid then and I never got the plant. I saw it in pet store tanks but couldn't afford it. At that time a guppy was an exotic fish for me. I had a goldfish.


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## Cvurb

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

Woah that looks like an awesome Cypt! I hope to get one of those someday, the sooner the better, super healthy too, are those yours?


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## EDGE

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

I was sent plant over a year ago as C. griffithii. I ID this as C. affinis because it had a green topside with red underside. bullation on the leaves and send out runners instead of the typical wendtii clump forming bush. This is one of the more better looking crypt in normal aquarium setup. I have them growing in 2x HO T5. light is approx 4" above the 10 gallons. no CO2 injection. Just flourite/onyx mixed with NPK+plantprod micronutrients


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## HeyPK

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

Edge: It sure isn't griffithii, but it might be usteriana, which is also bullated somewhat, and has exactly that red color underneath. Usteriana takes a long time to get really big, but when it does it is more than twice the size of affinis. It gets as big as C. aponogetifolia. Your plants don't look exactly like usteriana, however. They seem even more bullated and the leaves look a little wider. 
Smaller C. usteriana









Bigger, but not full sized, C. usteriana


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## EDGE

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

I will take a photo again once I convert it to emersed form. last 2 time I tried, the plant melted within a week.

Does this plant looks more like usteraina than affinis? The leaves are 1" wide and 4-5" long (excluding petiole) on the mother plant.

They are grown under 2 - 6500k bulbs in the submersed form.


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## Chuukus

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

I have a plant growing emersed right now that sounds like what you guys are describing. Its a small plant right now. The plant came from an old aquarium shop in rochester NY. A very nice older asain fellow gave me these plants for free because I spent over $100 during my first visit to his store.

Do you mind if I post a pic here to show everyone?


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## THHNguyen

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

Wow where are you guys getting your affinis?! I can never find this thing at any stores and no one sells it online either. The photo that EDGE posted looks exactly like the plant I saw being sold as affinis.


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## Chuukus

Here is the plant I think might be C. affinis I am trying to flower this plant to get a proper ID


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## EDGE

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

I got mine in Canada from another plant nut.

Not sure what the emersed crypt is.

There is not a lot of Cryptocoryne collectors in Canada. I Wish I had as much selection as you guys in the States. I am having a hard time finding C. cordata var and the true C. parva.


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## HeyPK

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

I got the affinis in the first photo where it is with Hygrophila polysperma from a pet store in Madison, Wisconisin back around 1964. I don't have it now. I wish I were better at hanging on to plants.


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## THHNguyen

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

Wow...parva is mass produced on plant farms and is readily available at a lot of the pet stores around here. I'd so send you some parva for affinis haha but I'm not sure how shipping across the border works.


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## EDGE

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

Time consuming to setup the accounts to send plant across borders let alone the extremely long shipping time and cost.

Technically, I need to have import permit and phyto certificate to send plants across borders which is nearly not worth the trouble for a plant.


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## THHNguyen

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

We can still always dream about one day having our precious crypts in our tanks...sigh.


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## ddavila06

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*



HeyPK said:


> Edge: It sure isn't griffithii, but it might be usteriana, which is also bullated somewhat, and has exactly that red color underneath. Usteriana takes a long time to get really big, but when it does it is more than twice the size of affinis. It gets as big as C. aponogetifolia. Your plants don't look exactly like usteriana, however. They seem even more bullated and the leaves look a little wider.
> 
> i don't think he has usteriana at all, i have it and is got a positive id (got it from Aaron T.) and it looks waay different than that when the young one comes out, and by the time 3-4 leaves are out (as in most his plants) they are huge...i don't think i have any really little ones to photograph this moment but yeah...


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## Cvurb

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

Woah, that first pic of Affinis from EDGE looks like my Petchii, except for that mine is only wrinkled on the edges. And I'm gonna talk to my plant guy at my LFS for Affinis, minima, and Albida. What else do you guys think? He can really only get submersed ones, I just hope he can get them.


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## EDGE

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

yea, definitely not usteraina. I had usteraina at one point in time that was ID by Kai. The one I had was bright green and it was not the dark green/red. leaves are more retangular than oval on usteraina.

If you look around in the crypt sub forum and the AGA forum, you can find people with all sorts of rare crypts in the States. I just can't bring them into Canada without the hassle of paperwork and permits...

Cvurb: Did you meant the photo from HeyPK?

Does Kai still come on this forum?


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## Cvurb

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

Hmm, I don't know a kai lol. I wish I was loaded, then I would have huge tanks dedicated to crypts, submersed and emmersed. I hope that someday I'll have greenhouse that has a humidity of around 80%. Then I'd make a little rainforest of exotic plants, and have a pond in there too. But alas I dream, mostly cause I'm a kid, when I have my own house Ill do this lol


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## HeyPK

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

You can find C. affinis being sold on Aquabid for $7.99 by Aquaticmagic, located in Malaysia. However, in the U.S. it is illegal to order it without getting the necessary phytosanitary certificate for importing.


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## THHNguyen

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

Does anyone know anything about this website? Is it reliable? The crypts seem really cheap...

http://www.pets-warehouse.com/vpasp/shopexd.asp?id=95167


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## HeyPK

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

The owner of PetsWarehouse, Robert Novak, has sued a number of aquarists for allegedly slandering his business on The Aquatic Plants Digest. These suits have stretched on for many years because of legal maneuvering by Mr. Novak. Some of the defendants have had to settle out of court because they could not afford the expenses of defending themselves. Novak has many suits going. You can find out about some of them at "Aquarists and the Law", a forum on the Pets Forums http://www.thepetsforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&f=80&page=1&pp=20&sort=lastpost&order=desc&daysprune=-1. 
I ordered once from him and had some problems because the order was only partially filled, and he kept trying to bill me for the entire order, even after two telephone conversations. I had ordered on a credit card, and I got the credit card company to send him my payment for the plants I received. I eventually got a receipt and there was no more problem. The plants were in good quantity and arrived in good condition. I believe Mr. Novak gets his plants from Oriental Aquarium in Singapore.


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## Cvurb

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*



HeyPK said:


> You can find C. affinis being sold on Aquabid for $7.99 by Aquaticmagic, located in Malaysia. However, in the U.S. it is illegal to order it without getting the necessary phytosanitary certificate for importing.


Hahaha I ordered a crypt from them once (I think it was Balansae) after like two months in my tank it didn't grow, so I emailed them and they sent me another, but border patrol got it  And then they started ignoring me... haha

A GREAT place for crypts is Sweet Aquatics! They give great crypts, and if you can, get the bunches of them, you will get like 5x more than just getting one (Which is two or three) and their anubiases are huge, I should post a picture of my tank on here, because it is filled up with their crypts, anubiases (a bit of dwarf sag because it works really well in low light), and Manzanita Driftwood branches.
They just take a little while to process your order, but I think their plants are all submersed too. Great portions 

And C. affinis sounds perfect for San Diego because it like hard water lol. I want it soooo badly now!


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## JKUK

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*



HeyPK said:


> I got the affinis in the first photo where it is with Hygrophila polysperma from a pet store in Madison, Wisconisin back around 1964. I don't have it now. I wish I were better at hanging on to plants.


I have affinis that dates back to at least the mid 1960's, maybe even earlier. It has a much more glossy leaf, with bright maroon undersides when in good light. In contrast to my recent import which has much darker leaves with some darker leaf striations. I find the old clone much more difficult to transplant, maybe this is why there are so few about today.

If I could only have one Crypt this would be the one.

James


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## HeyPK

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

Could you show us a picture?


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## JKUK

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*



HeyPK said:


> Could you show us a picture?


Forgive my poor photo, but here goes.

This photo was taken from above..........these plants are growing in very poor light as the aquarium is currently completely covered with giant duckweed.










James.


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## illustrator

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*










Here are mine. _C. affinis_ for sure and very likely the old clone. Only, take a look at the plant on the right of the clump, this one is slightly more robust and brown coloured. I believe that this is a different clone. This plant on the right is the one I obtained some weeks later, from a different source. But it is likely also a clone which is in aquaria for a long time.

I think that the trick to find it is to try to find people who still have it. This means often older people, the kind of guys who have an aquarium in their living room because they can't imagine a living room without it. But not people who check the shops for new things all the time. Aquarium societies are a good starting point. But in my case I found it when I checked small, independent shops which are owned by a single hobbyist. The kind of shops that were standard back then, but which now suffer very heavy competition from the large chains. For affinis, the large chains are not the best place to search, but you never know, maybe you get lucky one day. The point is that such large chain shops don't usually take surplus plants from anyone: they want to have the constant supply and quality that the large nurseries offer.

As I wrote before, I would not think about importing such a plant as a first resort, because it is hard to figure out if it was wild collected and, if so, if this collecting was done sustainable. On the other hand: if a whole stream will anyway disappear under an oil palm estate, I guess that there is no harm in removing all crypts (and fish and whatever else lives there) just before the destruction. Maybe some people will actually wake up and see that there can be something valuable in a natural stream ... I have nothing against wild collecting in principle (all our plants and animals are decendants of wild collected ones ...), it is just that I like to be sure that not whole populations were depleted for my hobby. So if a dealer can inform me how he makes sure that his supplies are not going to the cost of whole populations in nature, I would consider buying. I did not yet find any such info on dealers pages, but perhaps I just didn't find the right ones? I think that a phrase like "very rare, wild collected" should ring some alarmbells. (Unfortunalety, it does also sell ...)


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## HeyPK

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*

Just a little something wrong with the image location. I got it fixed. Nothing poor about your photo, James. Those dark green leaves are beautiful! Thanks!

Thanks, also, for your photo, Illustrator! Growing them together shows that they are different forms as opposed to the same one in different conditions. It looks like there are variations in C. affinis as there are seemingly in all the crypts. I currently do not have any C. affinis, but I had it back in the 60's and got it again in the '80's and lost it again. I have some slides of it from the '80's that I can get digitized and post them here. In good light the 80's form was heavily bullated and purple-brown.


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## illustrator

That is why I initilly planted them together. Both clones came from aquaria with low light intensity and no fertilizer and looked identical when i got them. In my aquarium they started to look different!


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## JKUK

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*



HeyPK said:


> Just a little something wrong with the image location. I got it fixed. Nothing poor about your photo, James. Those dark green leaves are beautiful! Thanks!
> 
> .


Thanks, it was only a snap shot.

I was a little surprised how large it has become under the blanket of duck weed.

I've had this clone for around five years, but it originally came from a friend whos father bought it, probably from Shirley aquatics . It took me quite a while to get a stable population going, but its now thriving despite some deglect from time to time. I think its really important to keep these plants going in aquaria, as sadly some forms my not exist in the wild today. Although I find it slightly frustrating, that nothing is know of their origin.

All I need now is the space to do it justice.


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## Cvurb

Woah, I love the look of that plant, good job on it. Looks super healthy. 

Why do you guys think this plant is so rare in the hobby right now?

Do you guys think LFS would be able to order it? I'll definitely ask mine next time I go to them, which should be tomorrow...


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## illustrator

It's become rare because it is sensitive to changes in water chemistry and quickly melts. Trade switched to species which are less sensitive. Shops are not interested in buying plants that look like nothing a few days later, even when they grow back in time. It was a popular plant in those good old days when you got your plants from fellow aquariumkeepers rather than from a shop (back then aquarium fish were also bred locally rather than imported from Singapore). 

So I seriously doupt that your LFS will be able to order it. But it doesn't hurt to ask. Maybe they happen to know a local aquarist who still has it ...

And yes, I am very, very happy to have it back.


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## Cvurb

Haha, well the search for C. Affinis must began! I'm gonna try to go to LFS to ask them, and Ill see the result! Will keep you guys posted!


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## illustrator

Hi all,

_C. affinis_ continues to grow very well, which makes me wonder: what would trigger this plant to start flowering? I mean: it is known as "difficult to flower" and emersed it stays smallish (nicely bullate though) and also rarely flowers. On the other hand I see photo's from nature where a whole clump of submersed plants sends out spathes that break the surface! So in nature it _can_ flower quite a lot, why doesn't it in most aquariums?


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## bogdan94

Hy, 
I got C. affinis flowers submerged. It flowered in my grandfather's aquarium, no CO2, no fertilizer, low light, no maintaince, just adding water.
I think there were 3/4 flowers, in 2 different setups. 
In that period the leafs got a brown color, but now, the new leafs are back to the normal color.



I think I have more photos, I will look and I will upload more.


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## chad320

Very nice bogdan94! How long was the crypt submerged before it flowered?


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## bogdan94

That plant was never emerged, I have it from an old friend, he keeps those plants by years, but never had a flower.

PS: Sorry for my bad english.


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## chad320

Your English is fine. What do you think it was about your grandfathers tank that inspired them to flower?


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## mats808

Here are some of the C. affinis types that I'm keeping. Terrible pics but they give you a decent idea of how the plants look. 








Currently the leaves on this plant appear even darker in life but they can also get red if you use more light.









I got this plant as C. affinis 'Rosanervig'. It had heavy white veining with pink highlights. Since then I've lost the veining, got it back, and lost it again. I'm not sure exactly what I need to do but I'm somewhat optimistic because I've seen distinct changes in leaf color as I've changed how I grow the plant.









This plant also shows a lot of variability in leaf color depending on culture. It's one of the more bullated forms.


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## ferchu22

Nice crypts Mats! They look really healthy! 
Are you growing all of them in submersed culture? Which soil are you using for in each case? 
Regards,


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## mats808

Thanks Ferchu22. 
These 3 are growing submersed. They're all planted in different stuff. The middle one is in ADA amazonia. The other 2 are in mixes of crushed coral, calcined clay, and inert sand. Just the ratios in the mixes are different. For affinis I don't think that the soil matters so much. I think that the main thing is that you don't let it get too acidic. I wouldn't recommend using aquasoil with very soft water but it seems okay with my tap (265ppm TDS, KH of 4ish). Really I think affinis should grow decently well in most normal aquarium conditions providing the conditions are stable. Any tank that has moderate to hard water, gravel of the right particle size for the plant's roots, and sufficient light should grow affinis with no problems. If inert gravel is used it's probably better if the gravel is "dirty"/aged or you might want to use root tabs. Also, I consider a single 24in T5 normal output bulb over a 15 gallon tank as sufficient for stuff like affinis.

I hope this helps.

aaron


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## THHNguyen

Wow those are beautiful! They make my affinis look rather plain lol. I think that harder water is better too. Mine don't grow that fast in my relatively soft water and their substrate is a little acidic too (florabase). I've waited 7 months before seeing the first runner but then again mine were an inch tall when I got them lol.


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## bogdan94

I don't know what make them to flower.
Before to make the first flower, I made there a water change with rain water, so the water in the aquarium became softer, but for the next flowers I didn't make something special.


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## bratyboy2

I got an affinis plant from or last auction. I'm having trouble growing it. Now I know why. It likes hard water!


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## chad320

Brad, did I send you some of my cryptoclay? Alot of crypts love this stuff and its easily added to an existing system frozen.


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## pianofish

That affinis is gorgeous, lemme know if you get any babies!


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## illustrator

Remember my picture earlier in this thread? Well, it's growing and multiplying ever since. I estimate that what is on this picture is 20% of the total stand, not counting what I moved to another aquarium ...  Some vague grey blobs in the foreground are fish.


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## illustrator

ferchu22 said:


> Nice crypts Mats! They look really healthy!
> Are you growing all of them in submersed culture? Which soil are you using for in each case?
> Regards,


I planted one emersed as well: it's a slow grower with small leaves, but it starts to send out runners as well, so I guess that it's doing all right. Jan Bastmeijer told me that also emersed it rarely flowers.

Soil: 
-emersed: the soil sold by Tropica, covered with some river sand and Java moss as decoration. 
-submersed: riversand with some gravel, with some clay balls (JBL) stuck in here and there. The layer is all together maybe 2 cm thick.

But I don't think that the soil matters much for growing this species: when the aquarium is standing for a while and you have some fish, fish poo ends up in the soil and that's already enough for survival. Add some fertilizer in the water and they really take off.


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## bsmith

mats808 said:


> Here are some of the C. affinis types that I'm keeping. Terrible pics but they give you a decent idea of how the plants look.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Currently the leaves on this plant appear even darker in life but they can also get red if you use more light.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I got this plant as C. affinis 'Rosanervig'. It had heavy white veining with pink highlights. Since then I've lost the veining, got it back, and lost it again. I'm not sure exactly what I need to do but I'm somewhat optimistic because I've seen distinct changes in leaf color as I've changed how I grow the plant.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This plant also shows a lot of variability in leaf color depending on culture. It's one of the more bullated forms.


Not sure how i missed your post but I wonder if the veiniation on your plants is similar in response to c.roseranvig in that in brighter lighting it looses its coloration which for most, is opposite to what one would think.


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## illustrator

I have now 4 clones of _C. affinis_, all without locality data (3 obtained as "the old clone"!). One is relatively dark with stronger contrasting light middle vein. In very low light conditions 3 of these clones look identical bright green, non-contrasting, but in stronger light they differ clearly.


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## JKUK

Here are a couple of slightly better pics of my old 1960's clone.









Taken without flash









and with flash


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## bsmith

Beautiful plant!


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## MissileBear

The C. Affinis "Metallic Red" 'Pahang Barat' in my collection. Has been a very slow growing sp; recently mixed some crushed coral in with the substrate and started to see a lot more growth and red/pink coloration. It recently sent up a daughter plant.


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## Plant Freak

Hi here is my C Affinis from Costa rica got it from a Chinese guy pet store and he had the plant for over 30 years growing on his pond. He got it from an import from Singapore on the earlie's 60.










Emerged, but this plant is veries with different light it relly depend on the light the plant will grow green, red, brown, fist I tood this plant was Wendtii Brown and came up to be a C. Affinis.



















Check the red under the leaf.


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## bsmith

Very cool looking spathe, that's for sure.


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## Plant Freak

bsmith said:


> Very cool looking spathe, that's for sure.


Thank you. This plant shoots loots of runners fast.


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## feeneyjj

The first picture posted by JKUK (post 29) looks most like the affinis sold in NY in the 50's and 60's, both in terms of leaf color and shape. Back then it was usually known as Cryptocoryne haerteliana. I think I read somewhere, probably in one of my German language aquatic plant books (that I don't have with me here in Switzerland), that affinis did not do well in emerse culture and that was why it is not grown by the big plant farms and consequently is not widely available any more. Of course, this is seemingly contradicted by the success being enjoyed by many who have posted here in this thread. In fact, I accidentally discovered emerse culture when my parents moved in summer 1974 and I put an old tank with pretty much moribund affinis out on the veranda for lack of a better place. To my astonishment, it started to grow again in the still damp gravel. Not long after that, I moved to Washington DC. Don't remember what happened to those plants.


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## K Randall

I thnk it's more that it doesn't take to tissue cultue like the more commonly commercially cultivated Crypts.


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## miremonster

Btw., in Europe a so-labeled Cryptocoryne affinis is produced by a notable company that seems to be a C. wendtii variant or some related Sri Lankan crypt. So it may be that many European hobbyists have alleged C. affinis in their tanks that's actually something else. I've got true C. affinis but not the plant in question yet; someone told me he had seen it flowering, with a spathe looking like that of C. wendtii. 
Yet to be evidenced.

Pics: 
http://www.aquaristikimdetail.de/pf...affinis-formen-bilder-erfahrungen/#post274579
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/261/affinisohnenoppen.jpg/
http://www.aquaristik.de/shop1/vordergrundpflanzen-a---c/cryptocoryne-affinis.php

-Heiko


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## feeneyjj

Thank you, Karen Randall, for the explanation. I'm sure you're right about why C. affinis is not being produced commercially nowadays.


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## K Randall

It's a shame, because the REAL C. affinis, with those really, dark blue-green leaves with the dark maroon underside, and it's short, dense growth was really a sight to behold in the aquarium. It was tough as nails too, in "old fashioned" (what, today, we would call "slow growth") systems.


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## bruceqiu

It's very happy to see so many people share their experience of C. affinis in this thread. 

Here is the one in my tank. It's plant in middle light.


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## illustrator

In may experience _C. affinis_ (including the "old one") is growing about equally fast as a _C. wendtii_. Of course many stemmed plants are faster.

It is also not that short: depending on the light I would estimate that the "old one" can reach 10-15 cm (leaves are of course longer), which is comparable to middle-sized _C. wendtii_. Also smaller and larger clones of _C. affinis_ exist.

About twice a year I take out all plants and replant them (can be in the same place), I find that they grow better this way than when completely left alone. It does best in a bit more mature systems, but has no particular problems in new aquaria either. I have seen them also growing just fine in very "old water" aquaria with a layer of fish-poo on/in the gravel but that is not a requirement.

The high light intensity in modern aquaria is too much for most _C. affinis_: it grows better in what we would call poor light or underneath taller plants in a well-lighted aquarium. Light tolerance differs amongst the different clones: I have a dark bullated one which seems especially sensitive and a somewhat smaller one with light middle veins which seems les sensitive. This last one develops a very nice dense low growth in a higher light intensity, and becomes a wonderfull foreground plant then. In very low light intensity the different clones start to look more and more similar to each other.

The main problem is that I didn't find a receipe to get it fo flowering predictably.

I agree that it is beautifull, to me one of the best looking crypts and definately a very good one for permanent submerse cultivation.

About _C. affinis_ in trade here in Europe: I would love to obtain it (will probably sooner or later find it somewhere - just in my country plants from this nursery are not sold. Maybe I'll order it online when the winter is over). On basis of pictures I find it difficult to conclude anything. If it happens to be a wendtii it is probably not too difficult to get it to flowering emersed. Note that it is not certain if the emersed plant shown in the forum is really the same as the one sold as "_C. affinis_".


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## rs79

There is no "real" affinis, rather it consists of a group of plants, with a similar flower but which represent a group of morphospecies.

That it, there are many forms of this plant. Some are black, some are brown, some green and among the green ones there was one in particular, the old "C. haertelina" that had blue green leaves. Some are big, some are small. If you google around you can find the various populations of them.

The plant is, I think, in the hudori, keei, clade and I suspect represents either an ancestral or derived form from the usteriana clade. It's not har to imagine it being some weird cross of usteriana and aponigetifolia - some populations get quite large.

They get strong light in the wild.

I hadn't heard they don't micropropogate well, where did you hear that, Karen?


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## illustrator

I would expect that many (if not most) freshwater plants have distinct populations in each different river system. Each of these populations can be seen as a separate species. With Cryptocoryne it is more complicated because of their mostly asexual reproduction. It is easy to believe that each clone represents a separate species, but I feel that this would be too much splitting. I suppose that you call "morphospecies" what I call a clone? 

In order to figure out what we have it would be very usefull to know the exact origin of our plants. We could then possibly sort them according to river systems. Unfortunately, of many of our plants the exact origin is lost long ago. 

About strong light: one of my plants, the darkest and most bullate form, does poorly when I put it in moderately strong light. It's new leaves are then very damaged and torn. As soon as I put it back to the shadow, the next leaves are again normally developed. I think that the clones differ in this respect but again, this remains an aquarium observation + speculation since we don't know the exact circumstances under which it evolved. 

I now obtained the "old C. affinis" also from Germany, will see if it differs from the one from Slovenia. My feeling is that it should be the same plant all over Europe, but without growing them side by side there is no way to be sure.

Perhaps we should give our clones names as with cultivars. The problem with this is that cultivars are named by the hybridiser (occasionally by someone collecting an abberant plant in nature and growing it on), then plants are given on or sold with this name. In general, only plants obtained with this name are the ones you can be 100% sure of if they are the same. What we have is much more confusing: a bunch of clones grown by people spread out over the world and no known origin. We don't know if "my old plant" is the same as the "old plant" from someone else. So my experiences with a certain plant can be very different from those made by someone else, simply because our plants might look the same, while they are genetically different. But at least "what looks the same" could get a name?


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## rs79

No a morphospecies, at least as I understand it where the limits of variation within a species vary greaty and how to quantize them into a single species is problematical.

Some plants, and animals, just don't vary much. A neon tetra is a neon tetra no matter where you get it from, they're just always the same. But on other fish - cichlids and killifish especially, knowing the species name isn't always helpfu. Consider Fundulopanchax gardneri - it has 4 subspecies and a dozen identifiable populations *of each subspecies*. It's possible to look at, for example Fundulopanchax gardneri gardneri from N'sukka and be able to visually differentiate it from the same fish from Lafia. Are these different species? Not at all, they're just a notoriously plastic phenotype - there is great variation within the species. Usually you see this in very successful species and indeed gardneri is all over the place.

Something like C. pontiderifolia is pretty consistent, it's just always the same plant no matter where it's found. Plants like keei and affinis though have lots of variations (although not as many as cordata!) but they're still all the same species - the flower makes them a unique species, albeit a polymorphic one.


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## rs79

Jan just (15-may) updated the crypt pages with an update for affinis. In a nutshell, there have been lots of forms of affinis found in Malaysia in the past decade but the "old" affinis, what we used to call "C. haerteliana" still has never been found in the wild. If shouldn't be hard to find in culture, it's around, especially in Europe. I see it from time to time in stores.

Dennerle sells tissue cultured affinis. I believe Anubias in Italy does too. Shrug.


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## illustrator

There are plants from Anubias in trade here, but I have not seen any _C. affinis_ between them and have been unable to find a homepage of this company. Some of their plants have a bit "uncertain" identification. What is _Cryptocoryne indonesiae_: a _C. wendtii_-form?

By now I have reasons to believe that the plant from Dennerle may be _C. wendtii _after all, but I still haven't seen this plant in real life and haven't seen any pictures of it's flowers. Untill then I consider this an open case.

I have the "old" _C. affinis_ by now from no less than 4 sources in 3 European countries. It is too early to tell if it is all the same. A fifth one (from yet another country) is different. So I agree that it is "findable" but it can be very, very hard indeed. I have searched for several decades before I had it back and, believe me, I visited really many aquarium shops in this time. It's "appearance" in shops depends for 100% on local hobbyists taking surplus there. So if one or a few people happen to have it and take plants to the shops, it is very well possible that it turns up regularly, but only as long as these few hobbyists keep taking it there. For example I know a shopowner who grows it in his home-aquarium and who sells it from time to time in his shop. On the other hand, to my knowledge it never appears on the aquaplant-exchange forum from the Netherlands, which is in general a good indication of what's in trade in the Netherlands and in West Europe.


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## countcoco

illustrator;651619
The high light intensity in modern aquaria is too much for most [I said:


> C. affinis[/I]: it grows better in what we would call poor light or underneath taller plants in a well-lighted aquarium. "_C. affinis_".


I totally agree with you about the lighting. If my c. affinis received _any_ direct light, even from an unreflected t8 tube, it would quickly pout and drop leaves. It also seem to react very negatively to any type of liquid fertilizer additions, including trace mixes.


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## illustrator

My experience with liquid feritlizer is different: I use the one from Tropica and _C. affinis _grows better with it. The plants are larger and darker coloured. Only I have to be carefull with the dosage, because algae are also doing better with it. I add a bit of liquid fertilizer everytime when I change water and very rarely in between, meaning every three weeks or so.


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## Plant Freak

I got 4 varieties of C. Affinis the old variety with the big long leafs know as haertiliana on the 50. 2 hybrid affinis and a brown variety. There is 3 more that I am trying get a big black one and 2 green. For my collection. I will like to hybrid two the old with a black for size and colors and complete a small experiment if it works. Where can I find good info on that.?? To hybrid crypts.


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## saddletramp

Hope this shot of affinis inflorensce is attached.
Here they are emersed and grown under double T5s 20" above substrate and fertilized every two weeks.
Bill


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## Tattooedfool83

Any chance of making the photo any bigger?


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## saddletramp

Not sure what the problem is. When I tap the photo in the post, it open to a high resolution picture. Bill


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## illustrator

Well, I think there is very, very little experience in hybridising crypts, regardless of the species. One reason is that most of the experienced growers very strongly prefer plants "as they are in nature", best even with locality data. Another reason, no doupt, is that the flower-shape is not exactly making it easy. With _C. affinis _you will have the additional problem that most clones are very reluctant to flower in cultivation. So to get two different clones to flower simultanuously seems rather challenging to me. With most, it is a matter of luck to have them flowering at all and not something that is reliably and predictably repeated.

Obviously there are some crypt cultivars around, but there are actually remarcably few. Some are individual sports, collected in nature (cordata "Rosanervig" comes to mind although I also read that this might be induced by a plant virus), others are more likely mutations which happened in cultivation (I suspect wendtii "Flamingo") and I suspect that wendtii "Tropica" may be a genuine cross-in-cultivation between different wendtii clones. Practically anything else is originally collected in nature, including hybrids.

So I can only suggest the following:

- try to experiment in order to find a way to get _C. affinis _to flower reliably

- experiment with an easier flowering species (wendtii) in order to gain experience with hybridising "any crypt"

- if you succeed, please make sure that you spread only those plants which are very distinct and recognisably different, there are already so many clones-without-origin in circulation that I think nobody is realy waiting for some more

Good luck!


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## manini

illustrator said:


> - experiment with an easier flowering species (wendtii) in order to gain experience with hybridising "any crypt"
> 
> - if you succeed, please make sure that you spread only those plants which are very distinct and recognisably different, there are already so many clones-without-origin in circulation that I think nobody is realy waiting for some more
> 
> Good luck!


Just was curious why would 'hybridising' a plant good in circulation. Wouldn't that be much more confusing to collectors. Wouldn't it make more sense to keep the line pure so that collectors would not have questions identifying the plant?


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## illustrator

Besides Crypts I also grow African violets, especially the wild species. Violets in general trade are all cultivars and are easy to distinguish from wild ones by looking at a few characters. In fact, there are several thousand cultivars registered, of which at least several hundred circulate amongst growers. Of all these, only a very small handfull of cultivars resembles the wild species to such an extend that they could be confused with them. Even with all those cultivars around, the way to obtain the original wild plants remains the same: from one grower to another (or also from one botanical garden to another).

I am not so worried about added confusion, our current situation is more like that most Crypts in circulation are of unknown (but probably wild) origin and also now practically the only way to obtain plands from known origin is from other serious growers (unless you count obtaining them directly from the wild).

In case of _C. affinis_ I think that we can be pretty sure that all are of wild origin, but only from some very serious growers you can get plants of known origin. Also of the original "hearteliana" the exact origin is unknown, although we know that it was imported to Germany by Härtel around 1939.

So the best and only thing we can do, is to have a small notebook in which we write down as much as we know about the origin of our plants. When we give our plants on to someone else, we just copy these notes and thus try to preserve the information with the plants.


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## Plant Freak

illustrator said:


> Besides Crypts I also grow African violets, especially the wild species. Violets in general trade are all cultivars and are easy to distinguish from wild ones by looking at a few characters. In fact, there are several thousand cultivars registered, of which at least several hundred circulate amongst growers. Of all these, only a very small handfull of cultivars resembles the wild species to such an extend that they could be confused with them. Even with all those cultivars around, the way to obtain the original wild plants remains the same: from one grower to another (or also from one botanical garden to another).
> 
> I am not so worried about added confusion, our current situation is more like that most Crypts in circulation are of unknown (but probably wild) origin and also now practically the only way to obtain plands from known origin is from other serious growers (unless you count obtaining them directly from the wild).
> 
> In case of _C. affinis_ I think that we can be pretty sure that all are of wild origin, but only from some very serious growers you can get plants of known origin. Also of the original "hearteliana" the exact origin is unknown, although we know that it was imported to Germany by Härtel around 1939.
> 
> So the best and only thing we can do, is to have a small notebook in which we write down as much as we know about the origin of our plants. When we give our plants on to someone else, we just copy these notes and thus try to preserve the information with the plants.


I will update the page Page with a litle of my knowledge about hybrids and clones I already got from some experience growers from here in Costa Rica I got 2 species of Pontideriifolia one is a natural hybrid like the the C. Crispatula var balansae that is a natural hybrid. And the other one is a clone. Different leaf color.

Best regards
Ron Kalman
Costa Rica.


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## Kai Witte

Hello Ron,

Please be careful when applying (botanical) termini with defined meaning - I have problems to understand what you're trying to get across?



> from some experience growers from here in Costa Rica I got 2 species of Pontideriifolia one is a natural hybrid


C. pontederiifolia is a single species (with several known collecting localities) and is not of hybrid origin; there is only a single widely distributed strain that is available commercially.



> And the other one is a clone. Different leaf color.


Do you mean a sport from a known strain/locality/clone?



> like the the C. Crispatula var balansae that is a natural hybrid.


Well, the evolutionary biology of C. crispatula var. balansae is a pet peeve of mine and IMHO certainly interesting and far from sufficiently studied. However, it's pretty clear that it's not a mere hybrid. Where did you got that notion?


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## Kai Witte

Hello Paul,



> Besides Crypts I also grow African violets, especially the wild species. Violets in general trade are all cultivars and are easy to distinguish from wild ones by looking at a few characters. In fact, there are several thousand cultivars registered, of which at least several hundred circulate amongst growers. Of all these, only a very small handfull of cultivars resembles the wild species to such an extend that they could be confused with them. Even with all those cultivars around, the way to obtain the original wild plants remains the same: from one grower to another (or also from one botanical garden to another).


Yes, a reliable provenance is paramount for getting the "correct" plants.

With crypts the problem of recognizing cultivars and artificial hybrids from wild strains could well be greater though since there are already a huge bunch of natural hybrids while most artificial hybrids are not that distinct from wild crypts (African violets have mainly be cultivated in horticulture for showy flowers which are usually very obvious while leaves of crypts tend to be very variable to begin with...).



> I am not so worried about added confusion, our current situation is more like that most Crypts in circulation are of unknown (but probably wild) origin and also now practically the only way to obtain plands from known origin is from other serious growers (unless you count obtaining them directly from the wild).


In the ECS it's pretty much the other way around with most stocks having a known collecting locality or otherwise unique identity (historic type strains, etc.). Undocumented hybrids popping up in the commercial trade would certainly be of concern (even if not affecting the collections of insiders).



> In case of _C. affinis_ I think that we can be pretty sure that all are of wild origin, but only from some very serious growers you can get plants of known origin. Also of the original "hearteliana" the exact origin is unknown, although we know that it was imported to Germany by Härtel around 1939.


Yes, I agree that we should try to maintain these old aquarium stocks, too. Despite their unknown origin, they do represent a part of the diversity of the species and, considering what is happening in their natural habitats, it is quite possible that some of these populations are already extinct in nature... 



> So the best and only thing we can do, is to have a small notebook in which we write down as much as we know about the origin of our plants. When we give our plants on to someone else, we just copy these notes and thus try to preserve the information with the plants.


Yes, that's the way it goes. It doesn't hurt to add unique collection numbers - these often tend to "survive" and keep traveling together with a known strain (rather than lengthy notes - efforts that should be published in dedicated journals like Aqua Planta, etc.).


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## Kai Witte

Hello Ron,



Plant Freak said:


> I got 4 varieties of C. Affinis the old variety with the big long leafs know as haertiliana on the 50. 2 hybrid affinis and a brown variety. There is 3 more that I am trying get a big black one and 2 green. For my collection. I will like to hybrid two the old with a black for size and colors and complete a small experiment if it works. Where can I find good info on that.?? To hybrid crypts.


I'm going to post some details/tips in the near future. I'm not sure if affinis is the most rewarding species for making intraspecific crosses but please do keep us posted how things work out!

I guess affinis will do well in an outdoor setting. However, please make sure nothing escapes into local streams!


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## hoodie75

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*



Cvurb said:


> Woah, I would LOVE to have any Affinis, but especially the C. Affinis 'old' LOL


 Hi I love the weath of info on this page, The C.affinis "old" kinda sounds and looks like what Dennerle has on offer, the submersed form is a real beauty.


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## miremonster

*Re: What's your Favorite Cryptocoryne?*



hoodie75 said:


> Hi I love the weath of info on this page, The C.affinis "old" kinda sounds and looks like what Dennerle has on offer, the submersed form is a real beauty.


A friend told me that Dennerle's "affinis" is a wendtii form. I haven't yet seen its inflorescences, at least its long-stalked green emersed leaves don't look like affinis at all but like those of a Sri Lanka Crypt. However, its submerged red-brown leaves with light veins look really beautiful, and I wonder if it's the wendtii form that was once described by Rataj as C. wendtii var. rubella.


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