Lysimachia parvifolia Red

Care at a glance

Overview

A compact accent plant for the foreground to midground, staying around 10 to 20 cm in both height and spread. It is undemanding for a red plant: it already shows reddish tones under modest light and hard, alkaline water does not bother it. The colour scales with intensity, turning deep red only under strong light of at least 100 micromoles PAR, with CO2 and steady nutrients filling the leaves out further. Trim it regularly to keep the shape compact and replant the cut shoots, which root readily; single severed leaves can even sprout new plantlets.

In the wild

Native to wet places across south and southeast China, growing on stream banks, in ditches and around rice paddies. The plant in the trade traces to a population found fully submersed in a river in the limestone country of Guangxi province, which explains why it takes harder, more alkaline water in stride. It is amphibious, growing as a compact rosette-like plant underwater and sending up taller flowering shoots when emersed.

Good to know

A loosestrife in the family Primulaceae, with parvifolia meaning small-leaved. It entered the hobby as Samolus parviflorus 'Red' because the rounded submersed leaves resemble that species, but the emersed form does not match Samolus at all and instead identifies the plant as Lysimachia parvifolia. Underwater it grows several short shoots in a broad rosette-like habit rather than the tall stems typical of aquarium Lysimachia, and it is one of the few reliably red plants in the genus.

Did you know

It spent its first years in the hobby filed under the wrong genus. The submersed leaves look convincingly like Samolus, and only the emersed form, with its alternate narrow leaves and small white flowers, gave away that it is actually a Lysimachia.

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