Re: Nuphar japonica (Cape Fear Spadderdock)

[Moontanman at aol_com]

In a message dated 6/6/02 4:00:19 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
Aquatic-Plants-Owner at actwin_com writes:

<<  The plant 
 supposedly comes from the orient, but it also grows in the Cape Fear River 
 basin in the Carolinas, I believe. That is where mine came from. Maybe a 
 non-native? It looks a lot like an Aponogeton ulvaceous with stems. >>

I have several I collected from Lake Waccamaw in North Carolina. It is a 
native plant and it occurs in several regional forms. The ones from Lake 
Waccamaw have long strap like leaves but I have seen it with very large (12" 
wide by 18" long) ruffled leaves as well. The North East Cape Fear River 
often has large rhizomes floating around in the river often as much as three 
or four inches thick and two or three feet long. Evidently washed out by 
digging along the river by human activities or maybe alligators. It is a 
great plant and does well in compost covered by a thick layer of sand. The 
leaves can be floating or submersed. I cut the floating leaves off to promote 
submersed growth. The plants from Lake Waccamaw seem to be more likely to 
form branching rhizomes than most other forms. It does best if you can find a 
small rhizome that doesn't have to be cut or break off the rhizome at a 
branch or fork. My experience comes from wild collected plants as well and 
you may be right about it preferring higher temps. In the winter it becomes 
dormant and will survive the surface of a pond freezing but it grows best in 
water that becomes very warm in the summer. The cultivated variety seems to 
lack some of the vigor of wild collected plants. I grow it in a very low tech 
manner with just a light and sand covered compost with only an airstone, no 
filtration. I have also noticed that algae usually doesn't grow on the leaves 
but often small snails that occur in the wild will eat tiny spiral grooves in 
the leaves. It is a great plant and my personal favorite as well. Banana 
plants (which also occur wild here) makes an interesting companion plant to 
the Cape Fear Spadderdock (local name) because of it's round leaves which are 
similar in color (but thicker) which makes for an interesting contrast in 
shapes as well as being from the same biotope. Submersed leaves can be coaxed 
from banana plants by cutting off floating leaves in the same manner as with 
Nuphar japonica

Moon