Cryptocoryne ciliata
I realize that I’ve blogged about Cryptocoryne ciliata in the past, but whenever it throws up a new spathe, I’m always excited about it. The spathe of this particular variety has just a nice looking color, with interesting texture that has to be appreciated in person to get the full effect. Its elegant, bold, weird and beautiful all at the same time – and it’s HUGE. The pot in the picture below is a 3 inch pot!
The wonderful speckling in the throat, along with the cream colored base. An area of swollen tissue defines the collar of the spathe.
In all its elegance….
Just look that that texture!
The quinessential picture of the female flower. Notice the ‘furry’ ends of the stigmas and super short styles.
A well defined male part of the flower with pollen tubes partially extended.
Cryptocoryne ciliata spathe II
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.
Cryptocoryne ciliata spathe
About three months ago, I found Cryptocoryne ciliata at a local fish store. Its not uncommon
to find it at, Florida Aquatic Nurseries grows tons of it. Since I hadnt tried it emersed, I picked one up.I potted it up in 100% aquasoil and over the next few weeks it started to grow. It gets BIG! Leaves almost 2.5-3″ wide and 9″ long. The plant was growing very robust. Too robust. It was getting taller than the tank it was in, so I moved it into my 40 breeder. There too, the leaves almost were touching the glass top. About 10 days ago, I noticed the plant was starting to throw up a spathe! Very exciting since I hadnt flowered this before. The spathe grew at a fairly rapid pace – like the plant, the spathe was big and robust – at the widest point almost as wide as my pinkie finger. Then I noticed the oldest leaf on the plant had turned yellow. This is a common occurance with my plants when they flower, the older leaves deteriorate. probably nutrient transfer by the plant as it uses up energy to flower. Then a day later, another leaf died, and then another. Meanwhile, the spathe continues to grow larger and larger. I checked on it every day to see if it finally decided to open, but no luck. This morning, I noticed that the entire plant, was laying on it side, I picked it up, and to my horror, right at the substrate line, the crown had rotted away! WHAT!! I was really really dissappointed. Trying to make
the best out of a bad situation, I cut the spathe out and put the stalk into a bit of water, hoping it would atleast open up. That was this morning. I checked an hour ago and the kettle had dissolved away. Enough!!! I took my razor blade, and very gently cut along the line I thought the spathe would open up in – hoping to
atleast get an idea of what the spathe would look like open. Too my surprise, it opened right up in my hands!
Here are the pictures. Gorgeous flower! Very regal looking.
Too bad it didnt open up on its own. I WILL try again.
