Cryptocoryne walkeri Legroi

Care at a glance

Overview

Care is standard walkeri: a nutrient-rich substrate, root tabs, low light and patience. It settles slowly, may throw the usual crypt melt after planting or a rough water change, and rebuilds from the rootstock if you resist the urge to pull it. CO2 is optional but shortens the wait. Left alone in the midground it forms a low brownish clump by runners, and mature clumps divide cleanly at the rhizome.

In the wild

Legroi is a cultivated line of Cryptocoryne walkeri, a Sri Lankan endemic of shaded streams that grows submersed when water is high and emersed on wet banks when it is not. Flowgrow records the exact wild locality of this form as unknown, and the plants in circulation are an old hobby line kept going in cultivation.

Good to know

Legroi was described as a separate species, Cryptocoryne legroi de Wit, before being reduced to a form of Cryptocoryne walkeri (family Araceae). It is a compact selection with olive to brownish leaves, one of several Sri Lankan walkeri forms, alongside Lutea, that keep their old species names as trade labels.

Did you know

Leaf shape is nearly useless for telling crypts apart. Forms like Legroi and Lutea were split into species and later merged back into walkeri on the evidence of the spathe, the hooded flower that only shows up reliably in emersed culture.

Related plants

• 

  Cryptocoryne Flamingo

  Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Flamingo'

  Freshwater·Brackish

  Medium lightMidground5.9 in (15 cm)

• 

  Cryptocoryne wendtii red

  Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Red'

  Freshwater·Brackish

  Low lightMidground5.9 in (15 cm)

• 

  Cryptocoryne wendtii Tropica

  Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Tropica'

  Freshwater·Brackish

  Low lightMidground5.9 in (15 cm)
• Cryptocoryne keei

  Freshwater

  Medium lightMidground5.9 in (15 cm)
• Cryptocoryne petchii

  Cryptocoryne beckettii 'Petchii'

  Freshwater

  Medium lightMidground5.9 in (15 cm)
• Cryptocoryne thwaitesii

  Freshwater

  Low lightMidground5.9 in (15 cm)