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Re:Pennywort
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>
>From: "Edmund C. Hack" <echack at crl_com>
>Date: Fri, 22 Sep 1995 07:44:52 -0700 (PDT)
>Subject: Sources for pennywort/ID questions
>
>I am currently messing around with a 10 gal. planted tank, trying things
>until I can get a space set up for a proper (75 gal or so) plant tank. I
>have a couple of plant questions. One plant I have seen in some of the
>Tetra books is Pennywort. Is there a US source of this? I would like to
>establish some at the front of the tank as a carpet.
<remainder snipped>
There are two species of pennywort grown in aquaria, Hydrocotyle
leucocephala and Hydrocotyle verticillata. The first species has a
horizontal stem that doesn't ascend to the surface. Its leaves are round
and the petiole comes from the center of the leaf. The second sends a
stem with leaves up to the surface and the leaves have a vee-shaped cut
into the center, where the petiole attaches. I have seen verticillata in
several fish stores, one in San Diego, California and one in Providence,
Rhode Island. I have verticillata, but just a small plant of it right now,
because I was growing it emersed, and someone knocked the cover off of the
gallon jar it was in, and it all dried up, except for about a half inch
fragment of stem. I finally was able to coax a tiny leaf out of the end of
the stem, and now I have a plant about three inches long with about four or
five leaves. Verticillata grows well submersed for me, but it needs a
little supplemantal CO2 before I get good, rapid growth. It needs to be
pruned frequently to keep it from covering the surface. It is very pretty
if it is kept from reaching the surface.
As far as leucocephala, I have been looking for it in tropical fish stores
for many years without success, and then the gradual realization came to me
that it has been underfoot, literally, all the time, growing as a weed in
my lawn. I'm sure that is what I have; it looks just like the pictures in
Rataj & Horeman or in Muhlberg. I havn't got around to trying to grow it
underwater yet.
Paul Krombholz Tougaloo College, Tougaloo, MS 39174