Lobelia cardinalis Mini

Care at a glance

Overview

A tidy foreground and lower midground plant, long a fixture of Dutch style layouts. Push cuttings into a nutrient-rich substrate a few centimetres apart and it builds a low, dense cushion, branching on its own instead of racing for the surface the way the full-size species does. Medium light keeps it compact, and it grows fine without CO2, just more slowly and a little looser. It rarely needs the constant topping of ordinary stems; when it does get leggy, replant the tops. Growth is slow, so keep the leaves clean of algae with sensible light and good flow.

In the wild

A dwarf cultivated form of Lobelia cardinalis, a North American marsh plant of wet stream banks and floodplains from Canada down to Central America, where it lives emersed for most of the year. The 'Mini' form arose in cultivation and is known only from the aquarium trade.

Good to know

Family Campanulaceae, the bellflower family, an unusual lineage for an aquarium plant. 'Mini' differs from the species in its far smaller stature and rounder, coin-shaped light green leaves set close together on the stem; it is also traded as 'Small Form' or 'Nana'. True material traces back to a single cultivated mutation, so plants circulating under the name are not all identical.

Did you know

Full-size Lobelia cardinalis is the scarlet cardinal flower of North American stream banks, a hummingbird-pollinated marsh perennial; the aquarium 'Mini' is that same species shrunk by one chance mutation into a cushion plant under 15 cm.

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