The last time I kept Cryptocoryne ciliata, the mother plant collapsed right when it flowered. I had to surgically open the spathe up to take a picture. The plant didn’t make it, but recently I picked up another Cryptocoryne ciliata and dropped it into my emersed setup. Last week, it started showing signs of sending up a spathe and today – it opened up. The spathe is pretty big – but then again, so is Cryptocoryne cilata. This spathe is about 8 inches tall from kettle to tip. The limb itself is almost 2 inches long. Its one of the most beautiful crypt spathes in my opinion. Since the geographic range of this crypt is vast (from India to Papua New Guinea) there are a lot of other beautiful color variants of this plant. I hope to collect more color variants of this plant in the future.
Ghazanfar Ghori Spathes
Here’s a good example of the ‘mutation’ that an over dose of Gibberillic acid can cause.
On the right you see a normal spathe. On the left, one that’s been deformed by an overdose of Gibberillic acid. You can see the limb of the spate is greatly enlongated, and the spathe itself is much larger with an enlongated kettle and tube.
Ghazanfar Ghori Experiment
Cryptocoryne alba is from Sri Lanka, but unlike most ‘common’ Sri Lankan crypts, this one is a bit difficult to cultivate. It requires more or less neutral pH, but very low TDS. I’ve been growing this plant for about 2 years now and just recently has it started to put out some daughter plants. After my GA3 spray back in December, it threw up a spathe, and now this week, its thrown up another one with indications of yet another on the way. The spathe is well formed and does not look like the GA3 spray deformed it.
When the species was first identified, the only variety was one which had a pure white spathe – hence the name C. alba. However, as more plants were found and cultivated, it was found that many different color variations existed. The one I have appears to be the ‘rose’ colored one.
Onto the pics…
Ghazanfar Ghori Spathes
My Lagenandra nairii ‘Yellow’ spathe has been growing really well and recently threw a spathe up. This variety grows a little taller and with larger leaves than the ‘Red spathe’ variety. Easy to grow under ’standard’ conditions.
Ghazanfar Ghori Spathes
It’s now been a little over two weeks since I sowed seeds of Cryptocoryne nurii in vitro, and so far I have not seen any contamination. Almost all the seeds are showing some signs of shoot development in various stages. Here’s one that’s looking promising…
Besides C. nurii, I’ve tried a couple other crypts as well. About 10 days ago, I used two auxiliary shoot of Cryptocoryne ciliata as explants. One of them had fungal growth on it within a week. The other one is looking pretty good and is showing signs of shoot development.
I’m going to try a few more crypts in the next few days, wish me luck!
Ghazanfar Ghori Tissue Culture
Let me start this entry with an apology. The picture in this post is pretty bad. However, the seed is small, in opaque Agar, in a baby food jar, which doesn’t have the best optics 
I’ve tried to adjust the picture in Photoshop the best I can, to show you what I see. Progress! Several of the C. nurii seeds are showing signs of germinating. In the picture, however horrible it is, you can see a clear shoot emerging. I hope the cultures are sterile – I’d hate to have contamination pop up!
Ghazanfar Ghori Tissue Culture
