Cryptocoryne ponterderiifolia & Cryptocoryne usteriana ‘Red’ spathe
The genus Cryptocoryne consists of 60 plus species of plant which can be found from India all the way to Papua New Guinea. I have been fascinated by this genus ever since I started in this hobby. About eight months back I started my emersed Cryptocoryne set-up just to save the extra plants I had from a tank I had taken down. Over the time my collection kept growing from a few odd pots in a small 10G to over 20 different species.
Cryptocoryne pontederiifolia flowered for me approximately four months after planting. The spathe on this plant started developing after I spotted the spathe on the C .usteriana ‘Red’ but the C.pontederiifolia spathe opened within a span of week. The collar and limb was beautiful yellow with a white throat.
C.usteriana ‘Red’ spathe took about two weeks to open up. The spathe was 8cm in length. The limb of spathe was deep yellow with a brownish uneven edge. This plant has be growing rigorously for me putting out plantlets regularly.
This plant was simultaneously putting out another spathe when the first one flowered. It is visible in the picture above.
February 12, 2009 at 12:51 am
Arn’t they beautiful and what healthy plants – congratulations.
February 12, 2009 at 9:13 am
Phillip, Thanks a lot !!!
August 31, 2009 at 12:33 pm
What is the difference between normal usteriana and the ‘red’ specie? How do you tell them apart? I recently got 50 plants that were only identified as usteriana, but they are bright, intense red on the undersides. Is this typical of all the specie variants?
September 1, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Robert, what you received will most probably be regular C usteriana. C usteriana ‘Red’ is a hybrid and comes from GULA Nursery in Germany. I have both the forms and have got spathes from both. The C usteriana ‘Red’ gets red on the upper side of the leaves too as you can see in the picture above while the regular C usteriana leaf has red under side with light to olive green on top. The spathes are also slightly different.
November 9, 2009 at 3:39 am
Thank you. The red hybrid must be a truly spectacular looking plant. Thank you for the information