Cryptocoryne keei

Care at a glance

Overview

One of the easier of the rarer Bornean crypts, and unusual among the bullate-leaved species in coping with an ordinary tank. Plant it in a nutrient-rich substrate in the midground, give it moderate light, and then leave it alone: crypts resent being moved and can melt after replanting or a sharp change in water conditions. CO2 is not required but helps the slow, steady output of new leaves. It spreads by runners, and an established clump can be split at the rhizome. Growth is slow, so keep light modest enough that algae does not colonise the older leaves.

In the wild

Cryptocoryne keei comes from a small area of western Sarawak on Borneo, where it was found in rivulets near Bau, west of Kuching. It grows submersed in the streams themselves and emersed along the banks, switching between the two forms with the water level like most of the genus.

Good to know

A water trumpet in the family Araceae, described by the Cryptocoryne specialist Niels Jacobsen and named for Henry Ong Kee Chuan, the Sarawak collector and plant trader who discovered it around 1978. The dark green leaves are strongly bullate, with a puckered surface comparable to C. bullosa and C. hudoroi, and submersed plants develop bright brown spotting.

Did you know

Growing Cryptocoryne keei submersed is straightforward, but getting it to flower proved so difficult that years passed between its discovery and the first cultivated spathe, which finally appeared in an emersed pot rather than underwater.

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