Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V2 #240

To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
Subject: Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V2 #240
From: krombhol at felix_TECLink.Net (Paul Krombholz)
Date: Sun, 6 Oct 1996 18:39:13 -0500

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>
>From: Bob W Lewis <rxman at cei_net>
>Subject: Another mystery plant

.................<snipped>................................
The substitute plant resembles a Crypt but has rigid leaves and
>stems a little like an Anubia.  It has a fleshy rhizome with rootlets
>also similar to an Anubia but the rhizome is not horizontal like
>Anubias but it may have been sliced. The leaves amd petioles are about
>equal, about 3 inches long.  The leaves are olive green on the top and a
>bright garish wine-red on the underside with prominent veins. The leaf
>edges are finely serrated. From my poor unscientific description can
>anyone suggest what this is?

Right now, it sounds like a Anubias nana with red undersides to the leaves,
and that can't be possible.  Could you give me a little more about the leaf
and petiole shapes?  Are the blades of the leaves elliptical or lanceolate?
Is the length of the leaf plus petiole three inches?  Are the leaves
really as stiff and thick as those of A. nana? How are the leaves arranged
on the stem?  (alternate, opposite, whorled?)  Your description of the leaf
color sounds exactly like a plant I used to have that I think was
Alternanthera sessilis as described in Muhlberg.  Kasselmann says that A.
sessilis is not suited for the aquarium, and, the only other Alternanthera
she describes is A. reineckii, but that one comes in many varieties, none
of which look like what I had.  Its leaves had only a short petiole.  How
thick is the stem?  Unless it is something really new and weird, it ought
to be in Aquarienpflanzen.

Paul Krombholz                  Tougaloo College, Tougaloo, MS  39174
In Mississippi, where has not rained yet.  Still fix'n.