# Cabomba australis



## biker (Sep 6, 2004)

This is one of my favorite aquarium plants.


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## biker (Sep 6, 2004)

Another close-up photo

It is not the Cabomba aquatica which I've been seeking for many years.


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## fishfry (Apr 15, 2004)

you can get Cambomba aquatica in the U.S., I am surprised you can't get it in Taiwan


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

Very very delicate looking... Nice pics.


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

Jeez! You guys in Taiwan get all the neat plants! You have some interesting plants in the background of your Hygrophila pictures, and I have been wondering what they were!


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## biker (Sep 6, 2004)

Please notice the doubtful cabmba specie on the right side. Some of Japanese books take it as C.aquatica mistakenly, while it is no more than a variety of C.caroliniana (I believe the left one with wider foliage is the original C.caroliniana ). Compared to C.australis, C.aquatica is greenish and has larger diameter of fragment of foliage. If this discrimination made by European aquarists is correct, I would like to know how to get it.


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## biker (Sep 6, 2004)

There is a rare variety of C.caroliniana which has not been seen for many years. Its name is C.caroliniana var.tortifolia because it grows tortile foliage just like that of corkscrew vallisneria . This photo is remade from the book published by T.F.H. Has anyone of you seen it before in your market?


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## fishfry (Apr 15, 2004)

is this C. aquatica?


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## biker (Sep 6, 2004)

I would say yes because it matches what I describe about the specie. The reason why we can not find it in our market is that our aquarium plants farmers didn't think it could be welcome in our aquarium shops.


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## biker (Sep 6, 2004)

HeyPK said:


> Jeez! You guys in Taiwan get all the neat plants! You have some interesting plants in the background of your Hygrophila pictures, and I have been wondering what they were!


I believe what you are talking about could be the Proserpinaca palustris which has also been imported to our market recently. To us, it may be new, while I read a lot of books written by your experts introducing the plant, so I believe it could have been used by your aquarists much earlier than we do now.


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

I recognized the Proserpinaca. I am wondering what that purple plant is to the left of the Proserpinaca.


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## Error (Apr 16, 2004)

biker,

Your photographs aren't showing up 

Also, according to Kasselmann, Cabomba australis is a synonym of C. caroliniana.

Might the tortifolia variation you are referring to be what is cultured as C. caroliniana 'Silver Green'? It has twisted leaves.


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## biker (Sep 6, 2004)

The link has been fixed. I hope you can see it now.
I got the information from the book ”The Complete Guide to Waterplants” written by Muhlberg, telling me that the sepals of C.australis are pale-ywllow, eyelets of petals are dark-yellow, while the sepals of C.caroliniana are white, eyelets of petals are yellow.
Meanwhile, the author also said that C.australis’s tips of pinnae are not spatulate, and the midrib of pinnae is imperceptible, whish are contrary to those of C.caroliniana, so I think they are quite different species.


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## biker (Sep 6, 2004)

So you can understand how much I love the species of Cabomba. I think most of our friends in Asia(including Japan) would recognize the red-leafed species as C.piauhyensis, which has been replaced as C.furcata by most of your websites.


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## Error (Apr 16, 2004)

I too am a Cabomba lover 

Other botanists might disagree with the consensus that C. australis is C. caroliniana. The species C. australis is only featured in two publications that I know of: Aquarium Plants by Rataj and Horeman (1977) and Picture Encyclopedia of Aquarium Plants by Yamada (1989). Here is a quote from a pamphlet on noxious weeds distributed by the government of Queensland, Australia:

"Five species are currently recognised − C. aquatica, C. caroliniana, C. furcata (= piauhyensis), C. haynesii and C. palaeformis. The previously recognised C. australis is now considered to be a sub-species of C. caroliniana, namely C. caroliniana var. caroliniana."

C. haynesii is not in the hobby (well, at least not in the U.S.).

Now that you have fixed your links, it is my opinion that the first two photos are indeed C. aquatica. C. aquatica is a variable species that shows several different leaf arrangements, total stem widths, and colors. Reddish shoots are not unheard of and have been imported. My reasoning behind this is that your plant shows the typical fine pinnasection characteristic of C. aquatica.

Species in the Cabomba genus cannot typically be differentiated from one another based on vegetative characteristics (at least not definitely--some are more obvious with their foliage than others). Floating leaves and flowers are usually required.

The "var. tortifolia" appears to be what I know as Cabomba caroliniana 'Silver-Green'. It is a cultivar.


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## biker (Sep 6, 2004)

Actually I agreed with your opinion that the first two photos are C. aquatica according to the book”Neue Wasserpflanzen-Praxis” from German botanists Gerhard Brunner and Peter Beck. While all these books we have mentioned are very old, the first time I heard the voice that C. aquatica is not C. australis came from the book “The World’s Waterplants”(sorry , it doesn’t have an English name, the ISBN No. is 4-7952-3012-9 C0345 P2200E, please check it out)written by Yamasaki and Yamada (1994), it said that the distributions of these two plants are different although they look very similar to each other, and the most important discrimination of C. australis compared to C. aquatica is that the starting point of the pinnae fragment is red-purple, not yellow, meanwhile the pinnae are shorter but wider, therefore C. australis is smaller than C. aquatica. Both of their flowers are yellow, but the laminae of floating leaves are round in C. aquatica., lanceolate in C. australis, so if this is true I think maybe you are right because I remember that the plant in the photo did grow round floating leaves.
Hey, is the Cabomba caroliniana 'Silver-Green' really existent in your market now?
Would you please show me a clear photo of it ? My friends here seem not to believe my report that it is real!


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## biker (Sep 6, 2004)

HeyPK said:


> I recognized the Proserpinaca. I am wondering what that purple plant is to the left of the Proserpinaca.


To Hey PK: 
I am sorry for answering you so late because I have to get authorized by my friends to use some photos of special species of Bacopa which some of you may be interested. The plant you indicated is Bacopa caroliniana, one of your homeland plants. It looks so brownish because I use strong fluorescence light in the tank. I know you may be thinking whether it is a new species of Bacopa or not, well , the answer is no, it's the real Bacopa caroliniana. The other two species which you are interested are very similar to B.caroliniana in submerged form, but they differ on colors changing, I'll open a new topic to introduce these new species later.


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## Error (Apr 16, 2004)

'Silver-Green' seems to be difficult to get ahold of. I don't have it and I don't know of anyone who does 

I know it was cultivated by a European nursery for a while, but I can't remember which one.


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