Emersed Growth vs. Sumbersed

["Greg Watson" <Greg.Watson at BrazeltonHotels_com>]

I've had a wonderful afternoon today pruning my "indoor garden" (which
is a 180 gallon tank) and was quite shocked to see a huge variation
between two submersed Red Ozelot Swords and one Red Ozelot that I had
allowed to grow "emersed".

In April, I allowed one of the flower stalks to grow out the back of the
aquarium where about every month it threw off a new set of buds and
beautiful dainty white flowers.  It was still blooming when I cut its
flower stalk which had reached almost 4 feet today.

Much to my surprise over the last 7 months, virtually all of the
submersed leaves had died back from the Ozelot with the flower stalk
that was growing emersed.   Meanwhile, the two Ozelot's that were
growing submersed were huge.

I had read enough to expect that the leaf structures would be quite
different between emersed and submersed growth, but I guess I was
surprised by the apparent preference for the plant to focus on emersed
growth.

The other two Ozelot swords had grown huge (I'm sure that my routine
trimming of their flower stalks allowed them to put all of their growth
into leaves).   Anyway, it was a wonderful and exciting afternoon.

Greg Watson