Re: Echinodorus maior

[Paul Krombholz <krombhol at teclink_net>]

....Rataj and Horeman indicate that E. maior is propagated by floating the
rhizome and not by its sending out runners as is done by E. parviflorus
etc. Has anyone else seen runners produced by E. maior? Do people here
think that the runners are due to the increase in light intensity or the
lengthening of the night?......



Given an uncrowded location and good light, I have had it reproduce 
by sending up a flower stem, which, in the typical fashion of the 
larger swords, produces not only flowers, but also one or two 
plantlets per node.  These can be removed after they have developed 
several leaves and roots.  This is the same way that E. parviflorus 
propagates.  I really wouldn't consider the flower stalk of E. 
parviflorus a runner, at least it is nothing like the runners of the 
small turf-forming Echinodorus species like E. tenellus, E. 
quadricostatus, etc.  The name, E. maior is, I think, a misspelling 
of E. major that got into Rataj & Horeman and several other aquarium 
plant books; in any event, it is now called E. martii in Kasselmann). 
The flower stem of E. martii is unusally thick, even thicker than the 
flower stems of the really large swords.  Rataj & Horeman say that it 
is not propagated by forming young plants on floral stalks, but they 
are just plain wrong.  I have had over 20 plantlets form on one stalk.

-- 
Paul Krombholz in warming central Mississippi, where we had one day 
last week where the high was 28 deg. F, and the low next morning was 
13 degrees.