Paul

Last time I see that plant I was sent some from RedWoods Aquatics but this is many years ago now, I have not been able to track any down again easy any way I have been busy. Will let you know if/when I get ahold of it again.

Hi Derek I just went to see if I had a pic for you but I dont sorry. Is this the true A.barteri var barteri you have ? I have a small section of this true one but I have just moved and built a whole new plant room and this plant has only just been re-planted again.

Thanx for the offer Warren but I have no need for any more polysperma. This subject was only a note about it flowering, and I agree the polyspermas grow really fast under most conditions. :-0

Yep not a prob in swaping some plants. This picture shows it much better. [ This message was edited by: Paul on 2001-05-07 07:34 ]

Hi Derek Good question I am pleased you have pointed it out. I consider them to be the same species! I had mine growing submersed for at least 10 years with never a sign of it wanting to grow emerged growth. Then I decided to grow it emerged to try and flower it. I set up a big clump in only very shallow water so that if it wanted to grow it had no option other than to grow out of water. This was done in my fish room under flro lighting and with a tight fitting cover glass, It did start to grow emerged but not very well and with no signs of flowering. I left it like this for about a year, At that stage I decided to try it out in my tropical glass house so that it received natural sunlight and was also exposed to seasonal changes in lighting spectrums and intensities from the sun it self as well as my own controlled lighting. It started to grow really fast but still no sign of flowering or hairy growth on the emerged stems. I then installed HID lighting in the glass house in the form of a 400watt metal halide and also a 400watt high pressure sodium light. I run this lighting for 18 hours a day over the summer months and cut it back to 15hours over the winter months. This plant grows very well and fast during the summer when exposed to 18hrs of light and temps of 25 to 30 deg C. But when the lighting duration is dropped down to 15 hours a day and the temps drop down to 20 to 25 degC it FLOWERS and continues to do so over the and winter months only. And then produces fast vegetive growth through out the summer months. It is only the stems that are flowering that show hairs on the stems as you can see in the picture. So as you can see from my playing around with this species what I believe triggers flowering is The plant is forced to grow emerged. It must have the seasonal changes in temperature It needs seasonal changes in lighting duration light spectrum. A plant can be controlled easily with lighting. For fast vegetative growth the lighting needs to be about 6500 to 8000k ie Lots of blue light and have a maximum duration that can be as high as 20hrs of light per day. To trigger plants to flower or reproduce via runners etc the lighting needs to be 3000k to 6500k ie lots of red light and a duration of 10 to 12hrs per day. All of this stands very well with most plants and I use several of the above changes to flower my plants at will. With the variegated form it is unknown if it is a virus or a genetic hybrid that causes the white veins, I tend to think that is a true hybrid or another species altogether because of the different growth habits. I do sell a lot of plants to the Wellington area so my Hygrophilia polysperma is in you region and at this time of year you might see the flowers themselves if I've just delivered some stock to one of the retailers. Anyway I hope this note is usefull to you. I am going to be away for a couple of weeks so I wont be able to help you out on any questions you may have over the next two weeks, I am off to sun my self on the sunshine coast of Qeensland :cool: [ This message was edited by: Paul on 2001-05-07 07:08 ] [ This message was edited by: Paul on 2001-05-07 07:54 ] [ This message was edited by: Paul on 2001-05-07 07:57 ]

I am looking at getting a R/O unit in the near future. I would want a unit that could give me 40lt in a day. I would like some of your feed back on What models are worth checking out. What pre-filters are recommended. And costs wouldn't go a miss. Any of your feed back of experience with these units will be beneficial. Thanx for any help anyone can offer I prefer to research before I get one and then find out its not really the model I needed.

Sorry Cess I can not offer you much help setting the pages up I have no idea what php/mysql means :???: Any of the pics in the FNZAS booklet with a PP (i.e. Paul Parsons) at the bottom are my drawings and you are free to use these if you wish. I think I still have the originals here if needed. The biggest problem me and Ian had with line drawings was to show the true form of the plants. But the cost to put together colour pics was far to high. So here is the chance to do it at next to zero cost for everybody.

When I set up my substrates for Cryptocorynes I use a mixture of 2/3mm pumice and corse sand mix.(propagating sand) In the bottom layers I mix in a little peat and a little clay. Clay and peat both help hold trace elements and help keep them in a form that is more available to plants. With the pumice I dry it out and then soak it in a nutrient solution. I have used PMDD mix at times and also hydroponic mixtures. I then top this all off with a layer of clean pumice mixture. I then give the foliage a spray with some foliage feeder about once a month. Some of the crypts are grown out in the tropical glass house and receive direct sunlight for about 4 hours a day. The others are grow under lights like tritons or power glos I have found that Crypts respond very well to these types of light spectrums. Humidity needs to be very high or the edges of the leaves will dry up. Yes you are correct to question the spelling of C.wallisii because it was wrong it is Cryptocoryne willisii. The dark ring that you spotted on my flower is not a shadow and is very a distinct feature. I have thought about sending a pic to the crypts pages to ask for ID. There is a lot of problems IDing Crypts because they vary so much depending on the conditions they are grown under even the flowers of the same plant can look completely different. Â

Its good to see some interest in this topic. :eek: I agree along the lines that Derek pointed out. Pics on the net are copyright so care must be taken to get approval from the respective owners of the original pics. The 1997 plant list would be at least a place to start. At the time that list was put together there was very few plants being imported, But a year later plants from Tropica arrived into the country and made that list out of date it is now overdue to be updated.

Hi Derek I am pleased you liked my web site. It is still very new and still being constructed so I will let you off for not finding it sooner //wink. With regard to your Crypt willisii, You are correct in saying that its probably not Crypt nevillii because Crypt nevillii is very rare.(I think I last saw what I thought was a genuine Crypt nevillii about 15 years ago and have never seen it since) I do have a pic of the flower from my C willisii in my profiles just click the pic to view and see if it's the the same as yours. I need to take a couple more pics of this particular plant and will do so very soon. The whole area around Crypt willisii and Crypt undulata and Crypt nevillii is very much misunderstood and confusing because of the wrong naming and wrong identifications in the past. The Crypt pages site that you mentioned is a excellent site and I use it often and it is in my links section. If you are after some plants in the future feel free to contact me.

There are really only a couple of N.Z. plants used in aquaria. Coffrey and Claton have produced a book covering a range of New Zealand aquatic plants but other than this there has been very little research or documentation done and made available. Feel free to use the couple of N.Z. plant pics that I have at my site just credit the pics if you do need to use them. The flowers are so tiny that I haven't been able to get a good pic yet. On another subject I would like to see a list of plants that New Zealanders do have, As you know the range is quite limited here compared to over seas and I have spent years collecting my current collection. It would prove to be a very useful data base as to whats being grown here, and it would also be very useful for people looking for a particular species. Then they could contact the person with the plant to see if any is available. It would be a way of distributing the rare plants across New Zealand so that they are not lost.

Hey cool site you have put a lot of work into it. I do hope it starts to grow I can see a lot of potential here, It would be good to see a active NZ board. I am more than happy to display a link for you on my aquatic plant site links page if you have a banner, or you can just use the add your own links section. Nice message boards I look forward to reading all those plant questions. Pauls Aquatic Plants