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Beautiful above the water - mangroves
I know this is probably not what Frank Reiter had in mind, but if any of you
ever visit Hawaii, mangroves are quite plentiful here. I read somewhere
that it's illegal to harvest them in Florida, but here, they're even trying
to remove them in some places. I'm not sure if you have to do anything
special to do to take them out of the state, but the U.S. Dept. of
Agriculture could help you with that. Considering how much I've seen them
sold for in some of the magazines (I think something like $29 for ONE
seedling), you could pay for your trip here pretty easily.
If you're not familiar with them, they can have a nice, mostly vertical root
system that, in older specimens, starts from just above the water line.
They start of as tall, thin trees from a long seed that floats vertically
in the ocean. The trunk and leaves grow out from the top end of the seed
and the roots come from the bottom end. From what I've seen here, the seeds
actually start to sprout while still attached to the mother tree.
We have some indoors in slightly brackish water and no supplemental lighting
other than what's coming in through the windows. Right now they're not even
in the gravel substrate. We just have them tied with some fishing line so
their tops stay above water, and they seem to be growing. No CO2 or any
kind of additives. Just the fish waste (archers and monos, both of which
eat a lot and can produce a lot of waste).
We also have some in a freshwater turtle pond outside in full sunlight.
In the 'wild', I've seen them along the ocean shore, as well as in concrete
drainage ditches (brackish).
Wade Shimoda
Honolulu, HI