# Flowers of my Cryptocoryne collection / field trip



## illumbomb

*C. sp 'Kota Tinggi'* - I like the crumpled surface of the limb, very elegant.


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## illumbomb

*C. nurii 'Mersing'* - one of my favorite flower having a heart shape, very romantic


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## illumbomb

*C. nurii 'Terengganu'* - this variation has upright limb, unlike the previous whose limb is perpendicular to the tube


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## illumbomb

*C. longicauda 'Johor' * - the limb has a concave hemispherical shape with a long tail


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## illumbomb

*C. pontederiifolia* - one of the hardiest and easiest to cultivate and flower with nice bright yellow limb


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## illumbomb

*C. affinis 'West Pahang'* - spirally twisted red limb erecting out of the water surface of a fast flowing stream


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## illumbomb

*C. cf. scurrilis 'Lingga - Yellow'* - collected specimen had an attached spathe which bloomed in my tank with a light golden yellow limb, in nature the colour is more intense


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## illumbomb

*C. cf. scurrilis 'Linggi - Yellow'* - a flower in its natural habitat, the golden yellow is much more intense


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## illumbomb

*C. griffithii 'Bintan'* - another collected spathe blooming in my tank


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## illumbomb

*C. cf. scurrilis 'Lingga'* - yet another collected specimen with spathe attached, should be a reddish form in the wild but I was not able to locate any blooming flowers at the collection locality to confirm


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## illumbomb

*C. cf. scurrilis 'Lingga - Red'* - the red variant in its natural habitat


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## illumbomb

*C. cf. xpurpurea nothovar. purpurea 'Mersing Barat'* - a collected spathe blooming in my tank, it lacks the yellowish throat commonly seen in this species


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## chris_todd

What can I say other than, Wow, those are beautiful flowers and great pictures!


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## HoustonFishFanatic

Good pics. I am jealous.


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## Angry the Clown

Wonderful photos, thanks for sharing them!


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## orlando

Fantastic! Thank you for sharing your photos. 

-Orlando


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## illumbomb

Glad that you guys appreciate the beauty of cryptocorynes! I was lucky as many of the flowers featured are from collected specimens with attached spathes. Its a pity that some of the collected spathes melted before blooming or I could have more to share :-(.

The only species which I managed to bloom direct from cultivation so far are C. pontederiifolia 'Singapore', C. wendtii 'cultivated', C. longicauda 'Johor', C longicauda 'Bintan' and C. sp. 'Kota Tinggi', with more coming soon (my C. ferruginea 'Sungei Kerait', C. nurii 'Central Pahang' and C. cf. nurii 'Bintan' are developing spathes now ).


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## illumbomb

*C. elliptica 'Perak'* - a blooming spathe in its natural habitat


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## illumbomb

*C. longicauda 'Bintan'* - this Bintan variant has less rounded limb compared to the ones from Johor


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## illumbomb

*C. griffithii 'Karimun'* - a blooming spathe in its natural habitat


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## plantkeeper

Simply amazing. I am jealous that you can cultivate these so readily from nature.


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## hydrophyte

fantastic! this is really great to have the biotope pictures.


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## illumbomb

*C. griffithii 'Thomson, Singapore'* - I found this while trekking around in Singapore


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## illumbomb

*C. sp. 'Kota Tinggi'* - a flower in its natural habitat


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## illumbomb

*C. sp. 'Kota Tinggi'* - the colour of the cultivated flower is pale in comparison to those in the wild


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## jerseyjay

Can you tell us a little bit more about your setup / substrate etc ?

And yes ... your collection is insane ! Thank you for sharing.


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## illumbomb

Hi Jay,

Glad you enjoyed the photographs. My set-up is relatively simple, individual species are frown in separate pots with the pots placed in fully covered glass tanks. No pumps, fans, misting system, etc are used. The tanks are filled with shallow layer of water up to 1/2 of the pot height (i.e. the pots are half submersed).










The main problem I am facing is the heat built-up in the tanks when my FL lights (15W to 18W per tank) are switched on (about 6hrs daily only due to minimise the heat built-up). There will be no way of resolving this problem unless I air-condition the room. Well, with this situation, the leaves may melt but new leaves grow too so in general, the plants are still surviving (although I believe they could do much better if the temperature was lower).

The substrate I use is mainly ADA Amazonia, mixed with some peat granule. I mix in some sand and leterite too for species found along the banks of rivers with sandy bed. Root tabs are used as fertiliser.

Regards,
T S Wang


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## illumbomb

*C. cf. nurii 'Bintan'* - collected spathes which bloomed in my tank, they are termed by some collectors as C. nurii due to the looks of the leaves (wavy edges with markings) but the flowers do not have the classical heart shape limb


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## illumbomb

*C. nurii 'West Pahang'* - a blooming spathe in the wild, the spathe is relatively much smaller as compared to the rest of the C. nurii found in other locations


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## hydrophyte

fantastic! keep 'em coming. can i come visit?


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## illumbomb

Visit my collection? I live in Singapore!









*C. ferruginea 'Sungai Kerait'* - a newly flowered spathe, finally after more than 1 year of cultivatation


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## illumbomb

*C. cf. nurii 'Bintan'* - again, the cultivated spathe lacklustre and the limb rots easily, just 1 day after blooming


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## illumbomb

*C. keei 'West Kalimantan'* - the spathe in its natural habitat


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## illumbomb

*C. cordata 'West Kalimantan'* - in its natural habitat, but I am not able to identify which C. cordata variety this specimen belongs to


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## illumbomb

*C. fusca 'West Kalimantan' *- an unopened spathe in its natural habitat


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## illumbomb

*C. cf. ferruginea 'West Kalimantan' *- the spathe in its natural habitat (I am using "cf." as I am not 100% sure whether I identified the species correctly)


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## illumbomb

*C. pontederiifolia 'Singapore' *- an old photograph of the first wild spathe I found


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## illumbomb

*C. wendtii 'cultivated'* - an aquarium strain which I cultivated emersed in a flooded flower pot and it bloomed


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## hydrophyte

Nice work. Thanks again for these fascinating photos. Please keep them coming.

I really have to work on this idea that I have for a biotope with emersed crypts in a shallow tank in very shallow water, to emulate so many of these biotope shots that you have of the plants growing in just a few cm of water in shallow streams or forest pools. It would look so cool to have the plants with their leaves just below the surface, but the spathe emerging up into the air.


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## illumbomb

*C. cordata var. cordata 'Rompin, Pahang'* - spathe of C. cordata (should be var.cordata since it was found in Peninsula Malaysia?) in its natural habitat


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## illumbomb

*C. sp. 'Lingga Island (location 14)' - *a collected spathe


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## wls

Thanks a lot for sharing those pictures. I was wondering if you could help me to confirm whether the crypt I have is Cryptocoryne wendtii.

 

 

http://img210.imageshack.us/i/1001008.jpg/ http://g.imageshack.us/img210/1001008.jpg/1/

I would appreciate your help. Thanks.


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## wls

...The leaves:


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## illumbomb

Hi wls,

I believe what you have there is from the aponogeton genus and not a cryptocoryne. However, I am not sure which species of aponogeton it belongs to.

Regards,
T S Wang


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## wls

illumbomb said:


> Hi wls,
> 
> I believe what you have there is from the aponogeton genus and not a cryptocoryne. However, I am not sure which species of aponogeton it belongs to.
> 
> Regards,
> T S Wang


 Hello,

Thank you for your quick reply. Originally the plant was small with small leaves, but then really took off and start growing pretty fast. Thank you for identifying it for me. I have another aponogeton plant and it looks different from that one. 
I found a similar plant with flower that looks identical to the one I have on another web site: http://aqualandpetsplus.com/Decor Aponogeton.htm .

Thank you for your help!


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## miremonster

@ illumbomb: 
Excuse me for hijacking -
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn85/illumbomb/cryptocoryne/IMG_0669.jpg
Nice plants in the background! Looks like a Melastomataceae!


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## Heiko Bleher

Hi guys,

this is Heiko Bleher and I wanted to let you all know, that I was recently in a beautiful small creek, almost untouched, in peninsula Malaysia and saw plenty of Cryptocoryne cf, affinis, growing by the thousands in that creek.

As some of you may not know, but besides my fish-collecting all my life, I am born into the pioneer family of aquarium-plants. My grendfather, Adoilf Kiel, started 1887 when he saw that no one uses aquatic vegetation for their gold-fish-bowl or those first glas-aquariums built... by 1900 he had the largest aquarium plants nursery in the world with 32 green houses in Frankfurt germany and exported all over the world...

Have alook at my website and also the new book of my mother, 
Iténez - River of Hope, 
which is the aquarium-plant richest river in the world (positively) and my mother discovered it and collected 60 plus of the most well known aquarium plants today in the hobby there (and I was a kid than helping... collecting fishes and plants...).
http://www.aquapress-bleher.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=3&Itemid=40

best regards to you all,

always

Heiko Bleher
www.aquapress-bleher.com


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## illumbomb

*C. sp. 'Singkep 3'* - I felt that the spathe looked like that of C. schulzei but my friend felt that the female flower looked like that of C. xtimahensis instead. Whichever it is, it proved that such species are more widely distributed that what we currently know (i.e. in Johor / Singapore).


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## illumbomb

*C. bullosa 'Pakan'* - The spathe had to be dug out in order for the entire spathe to be phtographed as the specimens are all deeply rooted with only the limb of the spathe sticking out of the substrate.









*C. bullosa 'Sungai Seblak' *- a well known location for C. bullosa


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## hydrophyte

More amazing pictures from *illumbomb*. Thanks for posting these!


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## Feng yu zhe

How are you, illumbomb
Cryptocoryne that shares you here is very beautiful.


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## illumbomb

Hi hydrophyte and Feng yu zhe, glad you enjoyed the photographs. Below are some more recent photographs which I took:


















*C. sp. 'Lingga 6' *- a collected spathe, with light yellow folded limb covered with protuberances and with a reb collar


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## illumbomb

*C. sp. 'Lingga 11' *- a collected spathe, the limb is golden yellow in colour with reddish spots, it has a red collar too


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## ferchu22

Beautiful spathes!!


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## supasi

I love the C. sp. 'Lingga 11' spathe.
Does that have a purple spathe type? I have seen pics of them and really like them.

Well done.


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## obake88

I love the pictures.
Just wish my crypts would start to bloom.


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## hydrophyte

Hey illumbomb thanks for more great pictures!

Hey sorry to waylay your thread but I have a recent update form my emersed crypts tank, which has grown in pretty well:










This setup was inspired in part by your excellent biotope pictures. I haven't had anythin new bloom in this tank, just a couple of _wendtii_, _ciliata_ and _pontederiifolia_, which have been flowering for me off and on for a while.

Do you know anybody going to the International Aroid Society Show in Miami in a few weeks?

http://www.aroid.org/show/

I have never been, but I am really excited to go. I wondered if there will be any society members form SE Asia there.


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## illumbomb

*C. striolata 'Sungai Assan'* - an opened spathe in its natural habitat


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## illumbomb

*C. sp. 'Singkep 6' *- a collected spathe bloomed, the shape of the spathe looked quite like that of C. griffithii but not the "hairy" limb


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## illumbomb

*C. sp. 'Lingga 17' *- A blooming collected spathe of yet another specimen from the fantastic Lingga Island


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## illumbomb

*C. keei 'Jambusan'* - a spathe in its natural habitat in Sarawak. The other habitat which I know of for C. keei is located at west Kalimantan.


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## illumbomb

*C. xpurpurea nothovar. purpurea 'Tasik Bera'* - a blooming cultivated spathe


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

The Tasek Bera purpurea has to be one of my favorite localities!


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## FarCanal

Stunning ... just stunning. Beautiful pictures and beautiful plants. I hope we can get some of these varieties imported into Australia some day ....


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## illumbomb

Ghazanfar Ghori said:


> The Tasek Bera purpurea has to be one of my favorite localities!


It was reported that the C. xpurpurea in Tasik Bera could be found in 2 separate locations 20km apart within Tasik Bera and there might be possible local variations between these 2 locations. Lets see if I can get my hands on the other one as well for comparison.


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## illumbomb

*C. sp. 'Lingga 22'* - we found this on the river banks close to C. sp 'Lingga 19 - platinum line'. Its leaves however did not had the 'platinum' vein and so we termed it as 'Lingga 22' first.


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## illumbomb

*C. sp. 'Singkep 4'* - Do they looked comparable to C. schulzei from Johore?


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## illumbomb

*C. striolata 'Sg. Assan'* - a blooming spathe of a cultivated specimen


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## illumbomb

*C. sp. 'Lingga 14'* - another spathe of a cultivated specimen


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## Khamul1of9

What a great thread. A nice collection of photos,and you have done a great job blooming so many. Thanks for sharing.


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## illumbomb

*C. sp 'Bukit Ibam Pahang, yellow Ring'* - I am not sure whether this is related to say C. cordata or is this something new...


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## 954baby

very inspiring, thanks.


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## illumbomb

Hi 954baby, Glad you liked it.









*C. cf. striolata 'Gunung Besar, South Kalimantan'* - the limb opened too wide beyond the throat level


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

illumbomb said:


> *C. sp 'Bukit Ibam Pahang, yellow Ring'* - I am not sure whether this is related to say C. cordata or is this something new...


C. cordata var. Grabowskii is noted to have texture on the limb of the spathe according the Jan's website.


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## illumbomb

Hi Ghazanfar,

Yup, I had read too from "my crypt pages" that:- "According to Bogner (pers. comm.) the difference is that C. cordata var. grabowskii has a rough limb of the spathe, while C. cordata var. cordata always has a smooth limb of the spathe.".

My personal opinion is that in terms of appearance, from those photographs attached in "the crypt pages" under C. cordata var. grabowskii page, the "rough" limb shown in those photographs were more wrinkled in nautre while that shown by the specimens which my friend found were more bullate in nature (i.e. different types of "rough"). The limb of the specimens found by my friend seemed to be much broader in width too. 

I am not sure myself whether those specimens found by my friend could be considered as C. cordata var. grabowskii, or a new variety under C. cordata or a new species (maybe possible too?), therefore I would let the experts decide and advise. Until then, I would let these specimens remain to be termed as C. sp. 'Bukit Ibam - Yellow Ring' first to avoid creating further confusions by guessing wrongly.

Regards,
T S Wang


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## junglemike

Hi Wang,

I think that cordata is another variety of cordata group.

The grabowskii which I found in Sarawak (confirmed by Jan from the Crypt pages) is like this:


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

The raised collar is certainly quite different than all the currently known cordata varieties though.


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## illumbomb

junglemike said:


> Hi Wang,
> 
> I think that cordata is another variety of cordata group.
> 
> The grabowskii which I found in Sarawak (confirmed by Jan from the Crypt pages) is like this:


Hi Mike,

Thanks for the clear photograph. Could I check with you whether the C. cordata var. grabowskii you shown can still currently be found in Sarawak in the wild? I heard many people saying that the habitat had been destroyed. When I went there last year, I could see that the edges of those forests had been cleared away (for road expansion?). I hope that these specimens could still be found somewhere deep inside those forests. Thanks.

Regards,
T S Wang


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## junglemike

illumbomb said:


> Hi Mike,
> 
> Thanks for the clear photograph. Could I check with you whether the C. cordata var. grabowskii you shown can still currently be found in Sarawak in the wild? I heard many people saying that the habitat had been destroyed. When I went there last year, I could see that the edges of those forests had been cleared away (for road expansion?). I hope that these specimens could still be found somewhere deep inside those forests. Thanks.
> 
> Regards,
> T S Wang


Yes, it has been destroyed for the widening project for the drainage there cos it always flood during rainy season (peat swamp).....and worst, got more housing estates built at the upper river.


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## illumbomb

*C. sp. 'Lingga Island'* - collected from various locations in the island, note the distinct colour variation


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## illumbomb

*C. nurii 'Pahang - white ring'* - a spathe of a collected specimen with a thin white line along the outer edge of the limb, in the wild the variation can be quite extreme like this as discovered by my explorer friend:"http://cryptoandbetta.blogspot.com/2010/07/blog-post_1500.html"


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## ddavila06

very nice!


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## illumbomb

*C. sp. 'Yellow Ring, Pahang Bukit Ibam' *- a spathe in the wild, note the tiny red spots on the raised collar


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## illumbomb

*C. zaidiana* - close up of the warty surface of the limb


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## FarCanal

Wow! Have you got any more pictures of C. zaidiana you could share?


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## illumbomb

Yup, just visit my blog.


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## FarCanal

Awesome ... hadn't checked out your blog in a while, you've been busy! I love all the food shots too ....


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## illumbomb

*C. affinis 'West Pahang'* - the spathe providing a resting point for demselflies crossing the river


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## bsmith

All of your pics and descriptions are great. Your photo of the affinis "west pahang" with the damselfly is amazing.


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## illumbomb

Glad you enjoyed the photographs.









*C. nurii 'West Pahang' -* this is considered as C. nurii by many others probably due to the leaves having characteristics of C. nurii, however the miniature spathe is not exactly typical of C. nurii so what do you think?


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## legomaniac89

Wow. Just wow. These pics are stunning . The _C. zaidiana_ spathe is awesome!


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## illumbomb

*C. sp. 'Pahang 8'* - the orange limb is distinctively different from the rest of the identified species in Malaysia Peninsula, I initially thought that it might be comparable to C. xpurpurea but my friend thought that it might be comparable to C. zukalii instead. Now I think it might be comparable to C. cordata.


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## chad320

Wow! This is a fantastic collection of pictures. How many cultivated crypts do you keep?


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## illumbomb

Hi, my collection includes all those species featured on my blog, of which some might have "passed away" along the way.


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## illumbomb

*C. schulzei 'Panti, Johore'* - a blooming spathe in the wild


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## illumbomb

*C. cordata 'Sedili, Johore'* - a usual bright yellow blooming spathe in the wild


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## illumbomb

*C. pondeteriifolia 'Thomson Singapore'* - a blooming spathe in my metal tub pond


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## illumbomb

*C. sp. 'Kota Tinggi, Johore'* - another cultivated spathe


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## illumbomb

*C. sp. 'Sumatra - Indragiri East 3'* - a collected spathe that bloomed in my friend's farm


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## illumbomb

*C cf. xpurpurea 'Malacca'* - a blooming spathe in the wild, notice the long limb


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## illumbomb

*C. schulzei 'Mersing, Johore'* - a blooming spathe in the wild


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## illumbomb

*C. lingua* - a cultivated spathe from Mr Teo's aquatic farm in Singapore


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## illumbomb

*C. moehlmannii - 'Aceh, Sumatra'* - a cultivated spathe


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## wabisabi

Awesome! Thank you for sharing!


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## Trail_Mix

Great photos, keep it up! Love seeing the shots of your growing set ups!


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## rs79

A very large form of what appears to be a cordata morphospecies was found to be growing in the old GDR. It's the same as Charlie Drew's plant and pretty much identical to the plant Illumbomb found in Bayu.

It was sold in the 50's as "C. grandis" by both Shirley Aquatics in England and Robert Gasser in Florida in the 50s and 60s.

http://images.aquaria.net/plants/Cryptocoryne/g/GDN/gdr/.03-0-Copr_2013_Tobias_Bernseea.jpg.meta/

http://images.aquaria.net/plants/Cryptocoryne/g/GDN/gdr/.00-0-Copr_2013_Tobias_Bernseex.jpg.meta/

http://images.aquaria.net/plants/Cryptocoryne/g/GDN/gdr/

I don't think this thing is cordata cordata or cordata grabowski. It has the same flower as COR, but unlike COR grows readily in hard alkaline water and gets 5X as large, the largest of all the broad leaved crypts. I've had both, they don't look or act much like each other and in my opinion the "grandis" plant is an ancestral form of the other cordata types. But that's a wild guess and much work needs to be done on with karyotypes and DNA analysis; the former well understood, the latter, I'm not so sure. It's a mysterious process as the quality of the output depends entirely on which parts you look at. Recently the entire theory of human evolution was turned upside down because a DNA test proved the opposite of what a previous DNA test indicated.

"In a landmark study published in 1987, Allan C. Wilson of the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues reported that the evolutionary tree for the DNA found in mitochondria-the energy-producing components of cells-traced back to a female ancestor who lived in an African population around 200,000 years ago. (Mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA, is passed down from mother to child and treated as a single gene in ancestry studies.) These findings fit the expectations of the Replacement model, as did subsequent studies of small sections of nuclear DNA, including the paternally inherited Y chromosome.

Further genetic support for the Replacement model came a decade later, when Svante Pääbo, now at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and his colleagues succeeded in extracting and analyzing a fragment of mtDNA from Neandertal bones. The study found that the Neandertal mtDNA sequences were distinct from those of contemporary humans and that there was no sign of interbreeding between them-a result that subsequent studies of mtDNA from additional Neandertal specimens confirmed."

Then, later...

"More recently, advances in sequencing technology have enabled scientists to quickly sequence entire nuclear genomes-including those of extinct humans, such as Neandertals. In 2010 Pääbo's group reported that it had reconstructed the better part of a Neandertal genome, based on DNA from several Neandertal fossils from Croatia. Contrary to the team's expectations, the work revealed that Neandertals made a small but significant contribution to the modern human gene pool: non-Africans today exhibit a 1 to 4 percent Neandertal contribution to their genomes on average. To explain this result, the researchers proposed that interbreeding between Neandertals and the ancestors of all non-Africans probably occurred during the limited period when these two groups overlapped in the Middle East, perhaps 80,000 to 50,000 years ago."

( http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...es-might-have-been-secret-****-sapiens&page=2 )

Boy, that must have been some party.

Anyway, the point is until the entire genome of the plant is known (and that costs about $29.95 these days) we won't know for sure, because sampling only very small sections of the genome can sometimes be 100% wrong, which may explain why sometimes DNA cladistics contradict those based on observed physical metrics; while it's sometimes helpful I'd place a goodly amount of faith in the karyotypes and morphology.


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