Littorella uniflora

Care at a glance

Overview

One of the harder foreground plants, best treated as a slow, no-trim lawn for a clean, bright tank. Give it strong light, CO2 injection and a sandy or fine granular substrate, and let it spread by short runners into a grass-like turf of single rosettes; feeding is best done at the roots. Growth is slow even when everything is right, so keep algae pressure low and be patient. The leaves are brittle, so handle it gently during maintenance, and it also does well in cool and unheated tanks or garden ponds.

In the wild

Grows on the shores and in the shallow littoral zone of clear, nutrient-poor, calcium-poor lakes and ponds across Europe, rooted in sandy ground. It is amphibious, standing exposed on the shore when water levels drop and living fully submersed when they rise, and it only flowers on land.

Good to know

A close relative of the plantains in the family Plantaginaceae, once named Plantago uniflora by Linnaeus; the epithet means one-flowered. It is a classic isoetid: a low rosette of stiff, fleshy, quill-like leaves over a large root system, a growth form adapted to lakes so carbon-poor that the plant draws much of its CO2 from the sediment through its roots.

Did you know

Like its relatives among the isoetids, shoreweed can photosynthesise using CO2 pulled up through its roots from the lake sediment, an adaptation to clear, carbon-poor water. In the wild it is an indicator of clean, nutrient-poor lakes, and it declines quickly when they are enriched.

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