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Re: Why does E.Tenellus belong to E. family?
- To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
- Subject: Re: Why does E.Tenellus belong to E. family?
- From: Roger Miller <rgrmill at rt66_com>
- Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2002 13:39:15 -0600
- In-reply-to: <200208181948.g7IJm1A01330 at acme_actwin.com>
- References: <200208181948.g7IJm1A01330 at acme_actwin.com>
On Sunday 18 August 2002 13:48, you wrote:
Just to be picky, the *genus* is Echinodorus, the family is Alismatacaea,
which it shares with genus Sagittaria.
> I've always wondered why E.Tenellus belongs to the sword family? It looks
> unlike any other swords that I know of. Others have a blade of leaf
> attached on the petiole but tenellus looks just like a narrow blade of
> grass.(blyxa sp)
I think that its flowers and fruit place it in Echinodorus. The root word
echino- refers to the small spines on its burr-like fruit. The leaves that
you are thinking of are unique to adults of the larger species.
Strap-like leaves are far from unique among the other Echinodorus. I'm not
up on the current species nomencature, but there are a number of small
Echinodorus that share the same leaf type. Moreover, I know that seed-grown
juvenile plants of E. cordifolius have strap-like leaves and look quite a lot
like small E. tenellus. I suspect that juveniles of most or all other
species have the same habit. The US-native E. berteroi can bare several
different leaf shapes on the same plant; strap-like, narrow-bladed or
oval-bladed, erect or floating.
Sagittaria are very similar to Echinodorus and they follow the same pattern.
A few small species always have strap-like leaves. In other species the
submersed leaves are strap-like while the emersed leaves have distinct
petioles with arrow-shaped (sagittate) or oval leaves. In fact, I think the
only distinctions between Echinodorus and Sagittaria are in their flowers and
fruit.
> Moreover, tenellus propagate by runners which I do not see in other swords.
> I've never tried growing it on land. Does it send a flower stalk with
> plantlets growing on it?
I'm not sure what the correct name is for the "runner" of E. tenellus, but
other small species have the same habit. I suspect that the runner is the
same structure that bares flowers in larger species. E. tenellus grown
emersed flowers like other Echinodorus. I presume that the flowering stalk
would also bare small plants.
Roger Miller