Cryptocoryne ferruginea Sekadauensis

Care at a glance

Overview

Treat it like a slow, slightly fussy midground crypt. Plant it in a nutritious substrate in an established tank, give it gentle light, and be patient: expect some melt as tissue-culture plants convert to submersed growth, and leave the roots alone while it recovers. CO2 and root feeding help it settle and colour up, though neither is strictly required. Once established it is reasonably hardy and spreads slowly by runners. Specialist growers find it easy emersed in mineral soil with leaf litter, and honestly, its long-term track record fully submersed is still short.

In the wild

This variety is known from a small tributary of the Kapuas River near Sekadau in West Kalimantan, Borneo, where it grows on steep, bare banks. The river swings hard with the seasons, staying low in the dry months and rising as much as two metres in the monsoon, so the plants shift between partly submersed and fully emersed life through the year. The variety itself is a green, rather narrow-leaved plant; a brown, wider-leaved plant found upstream is pollen-sterile and regarded as an unnamed hybrid rather than a form of this variety.

Good to know

A formally described variety of Cryptocoryne ferruginea (family Araceae), published in 2013 by Bastmeijer, Kishi, Takahashi, Wongso and Jacobsen and named for the Sekadau region. It is separated from the typical variety mainly by the spathe, which carries a threadlike tail and a more closed limb where var. ferruginea has a thick, mostly open tail. Trade plants are typically offered as tissue culture.

Did you know

Its home stream rises up to two metres in the monsoon, so the same wild plant can start the year high and dry on a bare bank and end it deep underwater.

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