Cryptocoryne wendtii Sindoor

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  Wendtii

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  Green

• 

  Brown

• 

  Red

• 

  Tropica
• Mi Oya
• Green Gecko
• Florida Sunset
• SindoorThis page

• 

  Flamingo

Care at a glance

Overview

Care is wendtii care: rich substrate or root tabs, stable water, and patience after planting. It sits well in the midground at 8-15 cm. Moderate light is where the maroon and pink tones develop; in dim tanks it drifts back toward bronze-green, and CO2 deepens the colour and speeds the slow growth without being required. Expect some melt when first planted or whenever conditions jump, and resist replanting it, since an undisturbed crypt always outgrows a moved one. Runners appear once it is established.

In the wild

Sindoor is a lab-raised selection, not a wild plant. It was isolated at the Sreepadma farm in India as a stable mutation of Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Brown', whose wild parent grows in shaded rainforest streams in Sri Lanka, emersed on the banks and submersed in the channels. Everything in trade is farm or tissue-culture raised.

Good to know

A cultivar of Cryptocoryne wendtii, the most variable of the water trumpets, in the family Araceae. Sindoor is the vermilion powder of Hindu tradition, and the name fits: mature submersed leaves run maroon to blush pink where wendtii 'Brown' stays bronze. As a selected mutation it is propagated by tissue culture to keep the colour stable.

Did you know

The name comes from sindoor, the vermilion powder worn in Hindu tradition, chosen for the maroon-red cast of the leaves. It is also a genuinely modern plant: a mutation spotted and stabilised in a tissue-culture lab rather than collected or line-bred.

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