[APD] info on the "Veronica Sword"

[Neil Frank <aquarian_subjects at mindspring.com>]

At 05:28 PM 7/31/2006, rich green wrote:
>Oh, BTW, any info on the "Veronica Sword" would be appreciated.
>

Rich,
The "Veronica" sword was developed in the Ukraine by a hobbyist and was 
shipped to me by Alexei Bednii of Moldovia in 1998. I was probably the 
first to have it in the US. It is now well established here and I suspect 
many readers of this group have had it at one time. I still have several 
clones in my tanks.  Tropica received one of those offspring from Karen 
Randall. They now have it in production under their trade name: Red 
Diamond. If you go to http://www.tropica.com you will find a new article 
entitled "The hunt for the new Echinodorus" which discusses this plant. My 
best recollection from my Bednii emails is that the plant is a cross of 
Echinodorus horemanni 'Red' and Echinodorus x barthii. This is similarly 
stated in the aforementioned article. The plant is very similar to E. x 
"Rubin", but not as large and more red. It tends to stay smaller than many 
Echinodorus (especially horemannii aka uruguayensis). However, as with 
other swords, you can get it to grow taller (16-18") with more Ca and N, 
and have fatter leaves with more P. (BTW, intentionally restricting 
macronutrients is a good way to control Echinodorus size, so holding back 
the KNO3+KH2P04 or the tabs can be desirable :-))
One somewhat unique Veronica trait is the behavior of the breeding spike. 
For me, it doesn't always break the surface. Instead, when it nears the 
surface it takes a turn downward and then allows the baby plants to root at 
various places in the substrate. It is quite interesting to have several 
mature Veronica in the same tank with their criss-crossing semi-circular 
stalks.
--Neil


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