Well, its been about a week since I pulled some elliptica leaves and planted them. on the advice of Jim and with Aarons previous experiences, I had taken a couple of the leaves out of the pot and put them on a folded paper towel right in the crypt tank so that they were sitting in 3-4mm of water. I took some new pictures today..
This leaf already had a fairly significant plantlet on it. However, look – not much has changed in the 1 week.
The ones in water have been there a couple days LESS than the ones in the soil, take a look here….
New roots are clearly visible and growing! It appears to have a 2nd ‘leaf’ as well.
Both leaves I put in water show similar results and both potted leaves are exactly as they were when I potted them. Comparing these, I’ve taken the rest of the leaves from the pot and added them into the water.
Ghazanfar Ghori Culture Info
Last year when GWAPA visited Florida Aquatic Nurseries, we spotted a new crypt varient in their ‘R&D’ section. It peaked our interest back then and several of us were talking about it on the drive back home. Today I’ve been informed that this will be a new variety that FAN will be introducing to the market at the upcoming AGA Convention.
New hotness!
I hope that, like ‘Green Gecko’, this variety holds it color submersed. I’ll definitly be trying to aquire some of this at the convention.
Ghazanfar Ghori Regular Update
Today one of my Cryptocoryne albida plants decided to flower. I’ve had C. albida growing emersed for almost 18 months now. It finally decided to send up a spathe. Two in fact. The 2nd one should open up within the next two weeks. The spathe on the outside isn’t very impressive. Totally different story on the inside though. Take a look…
The spathe is approximately 8 cm long from the base of the kettle to the tip of the spathe.
A creamy smooth pale color on the limb with just a few small speckles near the throat. The edges are quite pronounced.
Once cut open you can see that the small speckles turn into red patterning all the way down into the kettle.
A well formed male part of the flower.
Even the valve has the red pattern on it…
I noticed some interesting structure behind the male flower and removed it to get a better picture. These white bumps extrude from the kettle wall approximately 0.25mm
Ghazanfar Ghori Spathes
There are enough leaves on my single plant of Cryptocoryne elliptica to try my hand at propagating this species. This is the only known species of cryptocoryne that is known to be able to propagate via leaf cutting – or IS it? Read on!
The mother plant…
So the first step was to harvest some of the leaves. With a new razor blade, I cut off one of the older leaves. It was a little tricky to get that leaf cut without damaging the rest of the plant, so I decided the pull off the next leaf. To my surprise, the leaf came off with a tiny plantlet at its base. A little annoyed at myself for not noticing the plantlet earlier, I pulled off another leaf. Woah! What’s that? Another ‘bud’ at the base of this leaf too. I pulled off a total of 5 leaves, and almost all of them have a very noticable little bud a their base.
You’ll notice that in some cases, the bud is fairly well developed. In other cases, its just a little bump at the base of the petiole. The last leaf in the picture (bottom right) is the only one I cut off with a razor. All the rest were pulled off.
click on the picture to get a larger version
I potted up the leaves in 100% Amazonia and drizzled a little rooting hormone around each leaf.
So, the question now is – Does C. elliptica really have the capability to grow a new plant from just the leaf, like African Violets, or is it this little bud the the base of the petiole really the reason behind it all? The leaf in the middle of the pot is the only one that was cut – it doesn’t have a ‘bud’. I’ll bet that little bud is the real reason why elliptica can propagate from a leaf. It also explains why Aaron Talbot’s attempts at this failed – he was cutting the petiole. Take a closer look at pictures available online of others who’ve grown elliptica from leaf cuttings (Google) and you’ll notice that the plantlet always grows from the same ‘bud spot’. In anycase, I’ll post some pictures in a week or two of any success or failure.
Ghazanfar Ghori Culture Info
..another 14 days later…
Thats a six week time frame from bottom picture to top. Wow! Also notice that the leaves are now enlongated. Hopefully this plant will flower soon.
Ghazanfar Ghori Culture Info
Last week I received a few new plants. Most of them got here in pretty good shape – I hope they survive – thrive.
Cryptocoryne ferruginea ‘Bau’
Cryptocoryne griffithi ‘Panti’
Cryptocoryne longicauda ‘Marup Engkelili’
Cryptocoryne schulzei ‘Mersing’
Cryptocoryne schulzei ‘Panti’
Cryptocoryne striolata ‘Sungai Assam’
Cryptocoryne striolata ‘maradong green’
Ghazanfar Ghori Regular Update
It appears that the light fertilization has stopped the older leaves from dropping off. My hunch was right – the rapid growth in recent weeks probably induced a nutrient deficiency.
On a different note – I got some new crypts in recently! I’ll update with pictures tonight.
Ghazanfar Ghori Observations
Some observations over the last few days…
1) Root growth has increased dramatically.
2) Quite a few plants are exhibiting a disturbing behavior – older leaves are yellowing and dying off. Since the plants are growing at a fairly good clip, I can only assume that maybe there is now a nutrient deficiency. Yesterday, I sprayed a very very dilute mixture of ‘Miracid’ on most of my plants and to specific pots added some root tabs. ADA Iron Bottom and in some cases Seachem Flourish tabs. Hopefully I didn’t over do it.
Ghazanfar Ghori Observations
