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Re: Nomaphila corymbosa 'compacta'



Roger and James, thanks so much for your input! Very, very helpful.

Roger:

>I haven't grown the compact variety, but the non-compact plant is large.
>Mine have submersed leaves that get 8 inches long and 2 inches wide.  The
>plant likes to grow emersed and can get more than 4 feet tall.

Oh, dear! I guess I won't be looking to get the non-compact variety... 
Presently, my largest plant tank is a 5.5-gallon. One leaf would span the 
width of the tank!

>I really like H. corymbosa, but it takes some care.  In this case being
>"compact" might still get you a large plant that needs a lot of trimming.

Good thing I don't have CO2 injection in this tank, then. I can barely keep 
up with maintenance, as it is.

James:

Wow - what a great history lesson! I'm always amazed at how much background 
info you are able to share... Might you be a biology professor?

>Don't discard the remaining "stem" - leave it alone and you might see
>dormant buds in the leaf axils start to grow, giving you more potential
>cuttings to increase your stock.

Cool! So it sort of does work like a rhizome... I've done this with crypts 
- pluck off the plant/root, leave the bare rhizome partially exposed from 
the substrate, and eventually, a new plant grows from it.

>When you look at a plant name and see a third name (i.e H. corymbosa
>'compacta'), usually enclosed in parenthesis or sometimes capitalized
>following the species epithet, it usually indicates a cultivated variety. If
>it appears without any emphasis, it would mean a natural sub-species. In
>this case, 'compacta' would mean a cultivated variety of H. corymbosa which
>is physically smaller than the natural form. Looking at the Tropica
>listings - you quite often see plant names which have three words - this
>just means that a lot of what they are selling are cultivated variants of
>the natural forms (and this is a good thing - it means that the nurseries
>are working to select and improve the plants that they sell).

So what would something like this be?
http://www.aquartica.dk/default.asp?id=438

Maybe it's just identified willy-nilly, and basically the same as N. 
corymbosa 'compacta'?   If it is indeed a different plant, I would LOVE to 
acquire this, somehow... I'd probably have to smuggle it in ;-). Okay - I 
will trim the "stilt" and try to grow a new plant from it. I'll even put it 
into one of my 2.5-gallon tanks, where miracles seem to happen daily ;-).

Thanks again! Very grateful for the responses.

-Naomi