Cryptocoryne Blog

This week, after much anticipation, the spathe on Cryptocoryne sp. JP0501 finally opened up! Unlike any other spathe I’ve seen in person before, the flower is gorgeous, with rich color and texture! Additionally, its quite a large flower, and if you compare it to any of the spathe pictures on Jan’s website, you’ll see that this does not match any known Cryptocoryne species! As I understand from my recent conversations with Niels Jacobsen, this plant is still being investigated and as of right now is thought to be a hybrid between Cryptocoryne minima and Cryptocoryne griffithi. My personal opinion is that the texture resembles nurii more than griffithi. You certainly can see characteristics of both those plants in this spathe. I’ll be sending my pictures of the plant and spathe over to Jan soon, and hope to have some additional information about this unknown Cryptocoryne.

Collector code is: C. sp., JP0501, Sumatra, Riau, Sungei Pelan (Bast 1123).

Onto the pictures!

The spathe a day prior to opening.

It opened up, you can see the limb is long, but its curled down and back making the limb look shorter than it actually is.

Note the texture on the limb. Looks a little like nurii, don’t you think?

The spathe is quite large, almost as wide across as my thumb.

A cross section reveals purple color just inside the throat, but the rest is white.
It opened up, you can see the limb is long, but its curled down and back making the limb look shorter than it actually is.

The female flower is well developed.

Frequently, Cryptocoryne are collected from new locations and without flowers present, are simply labelled with a code. In this case, its JP0501, and I received this plant on my trip to ECS a couple of years ago. I brought it back with me along with several other plants. The plant did not fare the journey well – it simply melted into a pile of goo. All that was left was a tiny bit of rhizome, barely 2mm in size. That little bit of rhizome, with a lot of TLC, has now grown to this:

Gorgeous isn’t it?! Took two years to get here – but that’s all part of the fun – the challenge!

Over the last few months, this mother plant has been producing runners non-stop. I probably have 4-5 of these plants in various stages of growth now. That’s good news – since I’m probably the only one with this one in the US. I need to give some out to a few friends to ensure that it remains in culture.

Additionally, it’s started to send up a spathe!

..unlike any I’ve seen to date! Very exciting!
I cannot wait till it opens up to reveal its identity – or will it?
Stay tuned….