# Plant arrived with Spathe



## FarCanal (Mar 12, 2008)

I received some crypts today that were in transit for 2 days and I think there is a spathe. Is this the start of a flower?








I've not seen a crypt flower before, what are the chances of a flower surviving transit and replant? The growth on the leaves appears to be immersed growth so should I leave the plant under water and hope for the best?


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## jazzlvr123 (Apr 29, 2007)

looks like a spathe it wont show its true beauty unless you put it in emmersed conditions good luck


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## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

I think it's just a new leaf forming.


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

Yes, that is a spathe. Your crypt looks like C. spiralis or a C. crispatula variety.


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## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

I still vote new leaf. It would help if we knew what species it is or is supposed to be anyhow. Any idea?


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## orlando (Feb 14, 2007)

I would say new leaf judging by the number of edges there are as the new leaf unfolds.


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## rs79 (Dec 7, 2004)

Provider three bets 400 quatloos on spathe.


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## FarCanal (Mar 12, 2008)

This plant is supposed to be Crypt. Crispulata var. Tonkenisis. This ID isn't confirmed and would like to know if it's true or not. I've had this plant in a different tank for some time and have seen the new leaves developing and they look nothing like this. The other tank in question can be seen in this tank
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/cryptocorynes/53083-new-crypts-already-addicted.html

I think it's a spathe personally, but I'm not 100%. I told the supplier about this and provided the picture above and he said that it's not un-common for his crypts to flower at this time of year. I think he farms them in ponds, the leaf growth is certainly of an submersed form, I didn't think it was common for crypts to flower under water? As both the plants I purchased have these spathe like growths on them maybe it suggests that this species does this frequently?


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## bigstick120 (Mar 8, 2005)

I put my money on a leaf!


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## mats808 (May 7, 2008)

Hi Farcanal,
It's a little hard to tell from the picture whether it's a leaf or spathe. I can tell you that if it's the same plant in your other tank then it's not C. crispatula var. tonkinensis. Tonkinensis has very thin leaves. My plant would consistently throw out leaves about 1 mm wide, and totally smooth. Your plant looks more like Cryptocoryne crispatula var. balansae. I'm not saying that it is but it looks like it....definitely not tonkinensis.
aaron


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## FarCanal (Mar 12, 2008)

Here's a pic of the same plant in a different tank as it throws out a new leaf;









I have 3 variations of Crypt Crispulta in the one tank and at this stage I'm calling them;

Crypt Crispulta var. Balansae - The biggest of the 3 and the one I have most of. It's getting leaves to 70-80cm long, stays green and throws out plenty of runners. It's the one at the back of the tank in the link.

Crypt Crispulta var. Tonkenisis - Stays alot smaller than Balansae and gets red leaves with green edges. It doesn't look anything like the plant pictured on "The crypt Pages" site however. My LFS has a plant book with a submersed picture and discription that match this plant to this name. Can't find any other GOOD pictures of this plant growing submersed and hopefully it will grow in my emersed tank. What ever this plant is it does send out runners in my aquarium which tonkenisis isn't supposed to do again according to the crypt pages discription.

Crypt Crispulata - About the same size as the Tonkenisis (?) but the leaves are growing brown in color and with a narrow leaf. I have this plant growing in my emersed setup and will take some photos soon.

I'm sure I've got 3 different Crispulata's and I'll take some photos tonight (Aussie time) and post them. I only have one growing in my emersed tank but plan to get all three going to get an ID on what they may be.


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## Kai Witte (Jan 30, 2006)

I'm with Paul & Richard: Definitely a spathe!

It's not uncommon for imported crypts to develop a spathe which successfully opens. Good luck!

Please show a pic of the whole plant. Many populations of the crispatula group can open their spathes when growing submersed. Depending on the ongoing development it may be preferable to lower the water level if the spathe doesn't make it to the surface though...


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## mats808 (May 7, 2008)

Hi FarCanal,
Nice plants, nice culture. 

I was looking at the newest picture you put up and I am sure that this isn't C. crispatula var. tonkinensis. Like I was saying, tonkinensis has very thin leaves. 1 to 2mm at the widest in my experience when grown submersed. Also it is a smaller plant than the one pictured, at least when grown by me Could be poor culture but I had the plant growing submersed for over a year and it was consistently throwing out new leaves and looked very healthy. My plant never grew more than 8-10cm tall....maybe even shorter (it was several years ago and my memory isn't perfect) Part of the reason why my plant was on the shorter side was that the leaves would tend to kind of curl a little bit outwards. The leaves were also very much flat, not "ruffled" at all like the one in your picture. I looked for a picture I had of it but I think I accidently threw it away when I moved last. I found one pic that shows the top of 1 leaf. It would only be good to demonstrate the thinness of the leaf and the outward "curling" that I was talking about. If you like I can try to scan and post it.

I would also like to say that you grow your plants very nicely. And I hope that I'm not offending you in any way. I just thought that you might want to know so that you can continue looking for C. crispatula var. tonkinensis if you find it necesary. 

aaron


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## FarCanal (Mar 12, 2008)

Kai Witte - I've moved one of the 2 plants into my emersed tank and the spathe is growing, it hasn't opened yet but my fingers are crossed. Here are some pictures of the same plant in a regular fish tank;
























and here is a picture of a runner when it first popped up;









When I first moved the new plant with spathe to my emersed tank I took this photo;








Hopefully I'll be taking another photo of it soon, it's straightened up and about an inch longer.

Mats808 (Aaron) - Mate I'm not offended at all, don't worry about that. I've seen pictures of and read what I can find on Tonkenisis and according to all but a quite old book it looks vastly different. The plant you are discribing matches up perfectly with what I've found on the web and I don't dispute that you're right. The book I found with a picture that matches mine is quite old and has most likely been re-named to something different. I might start calling my plant "C. Crispulata Red" until I can get a better discription.


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## rs79 (Dec 7, 2004)

Nice. Very nice. More photos!


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## FarCanal (Mar 12, 2008)

I just went in to give this tank a bit of a mist spray and some ferts and the spathe is opening ...









I'll take it out and get some better photo's if it fully opens.


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## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

Well, there you go. I was wrong.


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## FarCanal (Mar 12, 2008)

The flower is now fully open, so here's an update on the pics;


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## orlando (Feb 14, 2007)

Holly molly I also was in the wrong! 

That thing looks very large! And very nice...Gotta love it..


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## FarCanal (Mar 12, 2008)

I've taken some more photo's today. The spathe looks closest to a Crypt Crispulata var. Balansae. If anyone want to have a go at an ID ... please go ahead. Anyway the photo's.

Here's a leaf from my emersed tank, pretty much how it came from the supplier;









Here's a leaf from my 4' fish tank;









The spathe and kettle removed from the plant;









I had a go at cutting away the kettle wall but I don't have a macro lens to get a better shot;


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## FarCanal (Mar 12, 2008)

Giving this thread a nudge, no one had offered an ID and it's been over a year. This plant will continue to be sold as tonkinensis in Australia until I get positive irrefutable proof from a source that is 100% reliable. We all know it's not tonkinensis, but what is it.

So Crypt boffin's ... how can this be achieved? Love to get an ID on this one, it is one of my favourite crispulata's. Is DNA testing an option?


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## ferchu22 (Oct 27, 2007)

Hi FarCanal: according to the spathe comparison with the pictures in Jan's page, it seems to be a Cryptocoryne Retrospiralis. It's similar to crispatula, but has longer leaves.
Here`s the link: 
http://www.xs4all.nl/~crypts/Cryptocoryne/Gallery/ret/ret.html

Regards


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## FarCanal (Mar 12, 2008)

ferchu22 said:


> Hi FarCanal: according to the spathe comparison with the pictures in Jan's page, it seems to be a Cryptocoryne Retrospiralis. It's similar to crispatula, but has longer leaves.
> Here`s the link:
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~crypts/Cryptocoryne/Gallery/ret/ret.html
> 
> Regards


I agree that the spathe looks the most similar to Retrospiralis but nothing else matches. It's never grown smooth leaves, nor have they ever been green. I'm thinking it probably a variety of Balansae, I've read that there is a bit of variation within the Balansae.


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## griffin7882 (Apr 26, 2006)

it certainly does look like the balansae i have in my tank.


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## FarCanal (Mar 12, 2008)

griffin7882 said:


> it certainly does look like the balansae i have in my tank.


There may well be a few varieties of Balansae floating around. If you look at the 3rd picture in this link; http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/showpost.php?p=404665&postcount=14 you can see the standard Balansae (I'll call it that) to the left grows much larger than this plant. The Balansae in that tank grows leaves to over 1 metre while this plant gets to 60-70cm. The standard Balansae is also a much wider leaf as that picture shows and is always green.


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## ferchu22 (Oct 27, 2007)

The plants change their colors and shape with different conditions, but I suppose that the flower is the key to label a crypt correctly, or not?


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## FarCanal (Mar 12, 2008)

ferchu22 said:


> The plants change their colors and shape with different conditions, but I suppose that the flower is the key to label a crypt correctly, or not?


That's very true. And on Jan's website he writes _"Though C. retrospiralis is known for more than 150 years, little is known about the variation in this species and its habitat."_ so you may be right. You're not the first person to suggest Retrospiralis. The points that make me think that it isn't are the leaf shapes and colours and also other quotes from Jan's site like _"C. retrospiralis is because of its seasonal character not well suited for the aquarium."_. This plant is very easy to keep. I've had it now for a few years and it's never melted or gone dormant in either emersed or aquarium conditions (2 tanks).

I might email Jan himself and see what he thinks. I emailed him when the spathe first opened but didn't send him the open kettle pictures. From those pictures he said Balansae, be interesting to see what he thinks.


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## Ghazanfar Ghori (Jan 27, 2004)

C. crispatula var. balansae


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## FarCanal (Mar 12, 2008)

I found this book at my LFS today. It belong to the owner as one of his "under the counter reference books". It was published in 1977 so is quite a bit out of date as a reference book, but at least this bit of published information matches a Tonkinensis to a plant that looks like mine.

I know that today's discription of a Tonkinensis is nothing like this but at last I've found something that matches up to what I have.


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## ddavila06 (Jan 31, 2009)

thats a sweet looking flower! congrats


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## HoustonFishFanatic (Feb 26, 2007)

FarCanal said:


> I found this book at my LFS today. It belong to the owner as one of his "under the counter reference books". It was published in 1977 so is quite a bit out of date as a reference book, but at least this bit of published information matches a Tonkinensis to a plant that looks like mine.
> 
> I know that today's discription of a Tonkinensis is nothing like this but at last I've found something that matches up to what I have.


This book is not considered the best reference book for plant identification. Especially for Cryptocoryne sp.
Just to give you an example of discrepancies : In the 2nd pic it says C aponogetifolia is a synonym for C usteriana.


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## FarCanal (Mar 12, 2008)

HoustonFishFanatic said:


> This book is not considered the best reference book for plant identification. Especially for Cryptocoryne sp.
> Just to give you an example of discrepancies : In the 2nd pic it says C aponogetifolia is a synonym for C usteriana.


I realize it's 30+ years old and out of date. It's just that it's the only place so far I've found a matching description and picture for the plant I have. It also just happens to be sold under that same name here in Australia still. One day we will find the name for it, until then it's being sold here as Tonkinensis.


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## Vadim S (Nov 16, 2008)

one of the forms tonkinensis
http://keep4u.ru/full/2009/01/18/49b92ea92dc2365c48/jpg


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## FarCanal (Mar 12, 2008)

I recently wrote to Jan D. Bastmeijer at the crypt pages and got the following;

_"I still stick on C. crispatula var. balansae. It is surely not a C. retrospiralis as that species has smooth leaves and moreover has - as far as we know - always a dormant phase with terete leaves and is not suited for the aquarium. C. c. var crispatula has rather stiff leaves and may have an undulated margin but not as pronounced as in your plant. C. c. var tonkinensis has soft bending, very narrow leaves.
The point for your supplier is that there is a rather broad range for plants regarded as var. balansae. Leaf width from 1 to 4 cm, green to brown and all in between. Call it for conveniance 'narrrow balansae'. No problem with that."
_


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## FarCanal (Mar 12, 2008)

Vadim S said:


> one of the forms tonkinensis
> http://keep4u.ru/full/2009/01/18/49b92ea92dc2365c48/jpg


That's one of the most impressive pictures I've seen for a Tonkinensis.


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