# E. opacus



## neilshieh (Jun 24, 2010)

I bought two plants labelled as E. opacus at a specialty fish store who imported them from a farm in Poland. They look nothing like the pictures I find on google with the dark green leaves and pale veins. I'll post some pictures later today but I wanted to know if there were different forms of this plant.


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## Yo-han (Oct 15, 2010)

*Re: E. Opacus*

Emersed form?


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## neilshieh (Jun 24, 2010)

I bought them as emersed, I have one growing emersed and one growing submersed right now. Didn't get a chance to take a pict, will do so tomorrow.


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Be sure to give them a deficiency and send me the photos


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## neilshieh (Jun 24, 2010)

Zapins said:


> Be sure to give them a deficiency and send me the photos


Ill take pictures of my deficiency deficient plants for you


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## neilshieh (Jun 24, 2010)

Here are the pictures!
Emersed specimen

















Submersed

























Here are the pictures that the store owner took for me. plants straight from the farm


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## miremonster (Mar 26, 2006)

Definitely not opacus. That's IMO the plant widely known as "Echinodorus schlueteri" in Europe (see also the Kasselmann aquarium plant book). The botanist Jozef Somogyi found out that it's not identical to the plant that was named as E. schlueteri by Rataj and described it in 2006 as own species, _Echinodorus maculatus_.

Apparently very close to E. cordifolius, but with apiculate leaf tip, and submerged plants can be quite small for a longer period.

In an aquarium plant book of Bertram Wallach (in German) 2 Echinodorus opacus forms are depicted, a bigger and a smaller one. Both dark-green with light veins.


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## neilshieh (Jun 24, 2010)

ah okay, well thats a bummer. When i saw E. opacus i was really excited but when they told me that it was from a farm i thought that was a bit odd.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## neilshieh (Jun 24, 2010)

The owner of the store was nice enough to put me in touch with their supplier... according to the supplier there are more like one described "E. Opacus" not just the dark green one we always see. Any ideas or literature that could help with this? I do see that leopard dark spot coloration on young leaves with the submersed plant which was why I jumped to the conclusion it is indeed Echinodorus schlueteri 'leopard' but I dug up one of your old posts and it seems as though it could be false E. schlueteri and instead be E. maculatus

The pointed leaves and dark spots on the young leaves certainly makes it seems so.

here's your old thread 
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/plant-id/58247-echinodorus-schlueteri.html

EDIT: just reread your post on this thread and you already said what I said above LOL.


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## miremonster (Mar 26, 2006)

I'll look for sources about opacus. Several forms such as "Satan"/"Saturn" from the Japanese seem to belong to that (and portoalegrensis). I remember that also several opacus and portoalegrensis forms imported from Europe (old strains?) were shown on the rayon vert site.
Yes, E. schlueteri 'Leopard' is a selection of E. maculatus (= E. schlueteri sensu Kasselmann, not Rataj), so the correct name (sensu Somogyi 2006) is E. maculatus 'Leopard'.


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