Cryptocoryne Blog

I know a number of crypt enthusiasts follow this blog, so I figured it’d be easiest to post my request right here. If you go out and visit wild populations of crypts and come across seed pods that are mature, I would really appreciate it if you could collect them for me. It’s legal to mail small lots of seeds to the US without going through a phytosanitary process. I do have an import permit that allows me to receive that material.

My success with C. nurii micropropagation with explants established from seeds has been very successful. Getting seeds might be the easiest way to obtain some new cryptocoryne and propagate them out to share with other hobbyists.

I really would appreciate it if you could collect seeds and send them to me.

Thank you

Ghazanfar Ghori Regular Update

Lagenandra have three general growth patterns when it comes to vegetative propagation:
1) They produce runners with daughter plants on the ends. L. narii is an example of that.

2) They have a thick rhizome that creeps at ground level, with daughter plants growing off the rhizome. L. meeboldi, L. thwaitesii are examples of this growth pattern.

3) Daughter plants grow as a cluster around the mother plant on short rhizome extensions, like L. bogneri.

My Lagenandra thwaitesii plant has gotten rather large, and it’s time to divide it up.

You can clearly see the horizontal rhizome, and off the rhizome, several areas where daughter plants are coming off of.

Using a sharp razor blade, sections of the rhizome were cut to divide the plant into 4 separate sections. You can see, each section has significant root mass to ensure that it will grow just fine by itself after division. its important that you use a clean blade that’s sharp. Irregular cuts have a higher chance of getting infected with bacteria that may induce rot.

Once the cuts have been made, the root mass can be reduced to 2″ lengths to allow for easier planting. It also promoted new root growth which will help the plant get established quickly.

Plants can take several weeks to get established. If the plant has significant sized leaves, you can remove the older ones, leaving only 2-3 of the newest leaves on the plant. This makes the plant easier to keep upright in the pot and reduces transpiration while the roots get established.

Ghazanfar Ghori Culture Info

Cryptocoryne zukalii is a very special plant. Back in the ’70s, a local collected this plant from somewhere in West Malaysia and sold it to an exporter. From there it made it over to Robert Gasser in Florida, and from there to Jan in Europe, and that’s where I got it from! However, the exact location it was collected from was never found, and it’s never been collected again! Part of the reason may be that without a spathe, this plant looks very much like C. cordata. You could be out there looking for this plant and walk right by it thinking its C. cordata. So, the plant that I have here, is a descendant of the original collection from the 70′s.

Its growth habit is very similar to C. cordata, with one notable exception; the petioles are almost always very long. Although I wouldn’t call it a fast growing plant, it propagates readily via long runners.

Last week, I noticed one of my plants starting to throw up a spathe! An exciting moment, since I’d been growing this plant for over 2 years now. Right off, you can see the spathe is very different from C. cordata. The limb appears to be very long.

A few days later, the tube has reached its full length, and the spathe is about to open.

Then last night, I came home from work to find it had opened up. A beautiful and elegant spathe, with the color that I can only describe as ‘Pumpkin pie’

Like pumpkin pie…

Note that the color sharply cuts off to white in the tube.

This plant is unique and wonderful. If you haven’t had the chance to grow this yet, I highly recommend it! Additionally, since it’s so close to C. cordata, I bet it will grow well submersed.

Ghazanfar Ghori Spathes

Different from my other two varieties of bangkaensis, this one sports green leaves that are slightly bullate.

It also has a fair bit of wine-red coloration under the leaves, especially the veins.

Though this one does not grow quite as large as the ‘Bangka Giant’ variety, this is a very beautiful crypt and this week it threw up a spathe for the first time.

With a ‘toothed’ edge on the limb of the spathe, a fairly well defined collar and narrow throat, the spathe is quite distinct. The mottled coloration of the limb has to be seen in person to be truly appreciated.

The purple coloration in the throat fades down to white in the tube, with some additional color in the kettle.

Collector code: Cryptocoryne bangkaensis Waser 2001-4

Ghazanfar Ghori Spathes

Cryptocoryne can be successfully grown several ways:

1) Fully emersed
2) Semi emersed
3) Fully submersed

In this post, I will detail the setup and general requirements of growing Cryptocoryne fully emergent.

Cryptocoryne, like most aroids, thrive in warm humid environments and tolerate low light levels, making them fairly easy to grow in a basic setup.

Setup
A simple, effective and low cost setup consists of:

1) A nursery flat, with no holes (~$1-$2)

2) A tall humidity dome, with vents (~$5-$7)

3) A 4′ twin tube T-8 shop light (~$12-$30)

4) 3″ Hydroponic net pots with CocoTek liners (~$20 for a set of 20)

For under $50, you can have a setup that works quite well. A typical 4′ shop light will actually be sufficient for up to 4 nursery flats, so as your collection grows, you can simply keep adding nursery flats with tall domes and expand your collection. A nursery flat can hold about 18 pots. Since you can fit about 4 of these setups under a single shop light, it gives you the ability to grow your collection to a respectable 76 pots of crypts.

Obviously, you can also use standard aquariums with glass lids to keep the humidity in. 30G or 40G breeder style aquariums work really well. For larger plants, like Lagenandra, you have no option but to keep them in larger setups since they grow quite large.

Potting
Pot up your crypts, add them to the setup and fill the container with 2-4 cm of water. You can also add about 1/4th the recommended dose of MiracleGrow or other fertilizer into the water. The use of a rooting hormone, like K-L-N Liquid Rooting Concentrate by Dyna-Gro also helps get the plant established quickly. If the plant has a lot of leaves but not enough root mass, remove the older leaves so that only 3-4 of the newer leaves remain on the plant.

In the case that you only have a small portion of the plant, don’t plant it too deep. Infact, just having it lay in a small depression and covering the pot up with Saran-Wrap will help the tiny plantlet get established.

Light
Assuming you’re keeping the setup indoors in an insulated room, the shop light will provide enough heat as well. You want to suspend the light about 4-8″ above the dome. Raising or lowering it will affect the amount of light and heat entering the setup.

Temperature
The best way to test the temperature is to measure the temperature of the water the pots are sitting in. It should be at about 75-80F. If the ambient temperature of the room is too low, the light itself might not provide sufficient heat. If that’s the case, a heater can be added to the setup. Nowadays, small indestructible heaters made for small aquariums can be bought for about $10. Having a heater in the setup also aids in getting the humidity levels up quickly.

Humidity
Covering the nursery flat with a humidity dome ensures that any evaporation / transpiration stays within the confines of the setup, raising the humidity levels. Your goal is to have it between 80-90%.

..and that’s it! This is a low maintenance setup. Once a month, change the water and add fertilizer. Plants should start growing within a few weeks of being added to the setup and you should see you first few spathes in about 3 months – for the easy growing crypts anyway.

Ghazanfar Ghori Culture Info

I’ve had this plant flower before, but in the three more recent times its bloomed, I noticed that even though overall the spathe was getting larger as the plant got larger, the tube was actually getting shorter, and it was the kettle that was getting taller. Last week, two spathes opened up at the same time showing the following:

Notice how tall the kettle is.

A cross section of the spathe shows the tube is almost non-existent, a very long spadix and well developed male and female flowers.

Ghazanfar Ghori Spathes

Found only in a limited area in Johore, Malaysia, I was quite happy to receive this plant earlier this year. Though I wouldn’t call the growth vigorous, it is healthy, growing well for me and producing runners. The leaves are green with red markings on them. Last week, this plant threw up a spathe.

You can see a fairly pronounced collar.

The spathe only lasted a few days, and by the 3rd day was already shriveling – I waited too long for the cross section picture, but you see the purple in the throat, giving way to a white tube and kettle that have a little purple speckling.

Note the emarginate top of the stigma’s.

I’m hoping to propagate more of this out and I think it might do well in aquariums.

Ghazanfar Ghori Spathes

One of the many Cryptocoryne cordata in my collection recently flowered for the first time.
Collector information: Cryptocoryne cordata ‘Siamensis’ NJT02-52
I received this plant from a friend, who happens to be one of the reasons I got addicted to growing Cryptocoryne, Sean Murphy. I believe he’d obtained it at some point during his participation at ECS several years ago. The plant grows in typical cordata fashion, nothing special was done to grow it or flower it. With attractive leaves almost 2″ wide and 3″ long, its a beautiful specimen. The spathe is typical cordata, but you’ll notice the limb has a dirty brown coloration to it and is slightly textured.

The male and female parts of the flower are well developed, with a shortened spadix.

Ghazanfar Ghori Spathes