Eriocaulon buergerianum

Care at a glance

Overview

An advanced-level rosette for the foreground of a soft-water tank. It needs soft, acidic water, strong light, steady CO2 and a nutrient-rich substrate, because like other Eriocaulon it feeds almost entirely through its large root system; root tabs matter more than liquid dosing. Stability is everything, and a swing in parameters shows up as greying roots and lopsided growth before the rosette collapses. Healthy plants split naturally into daughter rosettes, which can be divided and replanted once each has roots of its own.

In the wild

Eriocaulon buergerianum comes from East Asia, across southern China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea, where it grows in paddy fields, marshes and other shallow, seasonally wet ground. In nature it lives mostly emersed as a low rosette in wet soil; the fully submersed plant is an aquarium convention.

Good to know

A pipewort in the family Eriocaulaceae, named for Heinrich Buerger, the 19th-century naturalist who collected in Japan alongside Philipp von Siebold. It forms a tidy, symmetrical rosette of narrow leaves that stays only a few centimeters tall submersed, and grown emersed it carries the genus's characteristic button flower heads on slender scapes.

Did you know

Did you know this plant is a traditional Chinese medicine? Its dried flower heads are the herb gujingcao of the Chinese pharmacopoeia, gathered from the same species aquascapers now buy as tissue culture.

Related plants

• 

  Eriocaulon cinereum

  Freshwater

  High lightForeground3.1 in (8 cm)

• 

  Eriocaulon quinquangulare

  Freshwater

  High lightMidground3.1 in (8 cm)
• Eriocaulon Sulawesi

  Eriocaulon sp. 'Sulawesi'

  Freshwater

  High lightForeground1.2 in (3 cm)

• 

  Eriocaulon Vietnam

  Eriocaulon sp. 'Vietnam'

  Freshwater

  High lightMidground4.7 in (12 cm)

• 

  Eriocaulon setaceum

  Freshwater

  High lightMidground11.8 in (30 cm)
• Eriocaulon breviscapum

  Freshwater

  Medium lightBackground23.6 in (60 cm)