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Re: Aponogeton Undulatus: Flower Stalk


> The plant went berserk, the leaves are 12-14" long, there are approxiately 
  30 leaves.  The plant outgrew the tank, so I brought it home and put it 
  in one of my 90 gallon "high-tech" tanks:

I have a dwarf Aponogeton (I am not sure what spp.) that I had bought as a 
dry bulb from Wal-mart.  It took the bulb 3-4 months to germinate.  When 
it finally did I left it alone in a 5-gal tank.  It started to grow like 
crazy, after I changed the position of the tank, where there was a higher 
intensity of light.  When it sent up a flower stalk, I did not know till 
I saw the purple flowers because the long leaves filled the entire tank.
[The aponogeton was competing with a cardamine and hornwort.  There were 
only 2 dwarf gouramis in the tank too.  I had a corner filter running 
with charcoal.]

The flowers remained for about a wk.  The stalk produced these green 
"seeds" that fell into the water.  I am assuming that these are seeds 
that can germinate to more plants.  I did not have such luck. I left the 
seeds alone but nothing came of them. I cleaned the tank (way too much 
algae was growing) and removed the cardamine that was twisted with the 
Aponogeton. Then the plant started to die, the long 
lush green leaves all turned brown, save some small new leaves. I broke 
down the 5-gal tank and placed the plant in my 20-gal tank.  It was not 
doing well for a month but surviving and now it is growing again.

Sorry got carried away, to answer your questions:     

Is this normal behavior for A. Undulatus?  
	It seems so because mine did the same.  I also have another 
Aponogeton (I think it is an Undulatus) that is now flowering.  It sent 
up a spearhead about a month ago and has had white flowers for about 2 
weeks. The flower spearhead is long, about 12".

Will this eventually flower or produce small plants like Echinodorus bleheri?
	Yes, give it time.  Producing small plants, I don't know.  If I 
get anything from my Apon. I will tell you.

Is there anything that I can do to encourage propagation? 
	I don't know.  If you find out please post it.  But I don't do 
anything except change water, which is not often even.
 
What do you think caused this "bloom", 
perhaps the sudden increase in lighting intensity?
	I don't think it is an increase, although my dwarf Apon. did 
bloom when the light intensity increased and the plant started to 
recieve a fuller spectrum of light. My second (blooming at this time) 
Apon. started to bloom after I reduced the light.  The blooming may not 
be solely dependent on light.  If there is any relation, then maybe a 
change in the intensity of light or color of light signals the blooming.
I know that red light signals dormant seeds to germinate, but this is 
concerning land plants.  I really don't know.  I would love to find out.

Good Luck!!!!!

Le Minh Tran
minhtran at basil_stthom.edu