Lagenandra meeboldii Green

• 

  Meeboldii
• Red
• Red Round
• Pink
• GreenThis page

Care at a glance

Overview

A slow, steady midground plant that also works as a solitary accent in smaller tanks. Plant it with the roots in a nutrient-rich substrate but leave the rhizome itself on top, since a buried rhizome rots. It tolerates low light and needs no CO2, though medium light and a little CO2 give tidier, faster growth. Growth is slow enough that algae can settle on older leaves under strong light, so err dimmer. Propagate by cutting the rhizome into sections or splitting off side shoots, and expect a pause of a few weeks while new pieces re-root.

In the wild

A green colour selection of Lagenandra meeboldii, not a wild population of its own. The species grows on shaded, marshy streambanks in Karnataka and Kerala in southwest India, up to about 1200 m, where plants sit emersed most of the year and are flooded when the water rises. In the aquarium it grows permanently submersed without complaint.

Good to know

An aroid in the family Araceae, in the genus Lagenandra, the closest relatives of the cryptocorynes. The species is named after the botanist and plant collector Alfred Meebold, and it is naturally variable: green, pink and red leaved plants all occur, and 'Green' is simply the light to medium green end of that range held stable in cultivation. Like all Lagenandra it grows from a thick creeping rhizome rather than a crypt-style rosette.

Did you know

You can tell a Lagenandra from a Cryptocoryne before the leaf even opens: Lagenandra leaves unroll with both edges coiled inwards, while a crypt leaf is rolled in one direction with one edge wrapped around the other.

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• 

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