Bucephalandra sordidula

Care at a glance

Overview

Care is standard Buce: glue or tie the rhizome to rock or wood and never bury it, or it rots. It is unfussy about light and does fine in shade, where the dark colours hold and algae stays off the slow-growing leaves; CO2 and gentle fertilisation bring slightly faster growth and richer colour. Keep the water stable, since sudden swings in temperature or chemistry can trigger leaf melt. Propagate by cutting the rhizome into pieces.

In the wild

Bucephalandra sordidula is a rheophyte from a small area of West Kalimantan on Borneo, known from near Nanga Pinoh in the Melawi regency. It grows anchored to rock in fast forest streams, sitting emersed on the banks in the dry season and fully submersed when the rivers rise. Like the rest of the genus it comes from soft, slightly acidic water with steady flow.

Good to know

Unlike most of the Bucephalandra in shops, which carry invented trade names, this is a formally described species, published by S.Y. Wong and P.C. Boyce in 2014. The epithet sordidula roughly means a little dingy, referring to its muted dark green to red-brown and wine-red tones. In the trade it has circulated as Bucephalandra sp. 'Melawi' and sp. 'Titan', and like its relatives it can open its small aroid inflorescences underwater.

Did you know

Its formal name is botanical Latin for a little dirty, an unglamorous label for a plant whose leaves shade into wine red. In a genus where nearly everything sold is a made-up trade name, a real published species name is itself a distinction.

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