Lilaeopsis and other carpet plants

["Kinney, Travis" <kinney at pdtarchs_com>]

I have had great success with Lilaeopsis, hairgrass, and marsilea. Like many
others, I have found that the older leaves tend to get algae attached to
them. I was wondering if these older leaves were located at the beginning of
longs strands of plants. As an experiment I took a pair of scissors and
trimmed as many roots between plantlets as I could. Not only did the plants
begin to looks healthier, but the growth thickened quite a bit. Could the
root pruning have caused more branching and stronger growth, causing the
algae to recede? Not sure, but the plants loved the pruning. Maybe it's like
runners on a strawberry plant, where if you let too many runners emerge from
one plant it begins to suffer because it is providing some of the nutrients
to the plantlets. By limiting the number of off-shoots, she keep the mother
plant healthier. Is that analogy accurate?

-Travis