Pogostemon sampsonii

Care at a glance

Overview

A whorled stem for the midground to background that sits in the comfortable middle of the genus: nowhere near as touchy as Pogostemon stellatus, a little more demanding than a basic beginner stem. Give it medium or better light and it holds tight whorls; CO2 and a rich substrate speed up branching and deepen the green but are not make-or-break. Trim anywhere along the stem and replant the tops, since cut stems branch below the cut and thicken the bush. In weak light the whorls open up and the lower stem bares out, which is the main way it disappoints.

In the wild

Native to southern China, recorded from Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hunan and Jiangxi, where it grows in wet ground along streams, ditches and paddy margins. Like most aquatic mints it is amphibious, growing emersed on saturated soil for much of the year and submersed when flooded, and the aquarium stock converts readily between the two forms.

Good to know

A member of Lamiaceae, the mint family, and a relative of patchouli. It circulated in the hobby for years under two wrong names, first as Limnophila punctata and later as Pogostemon cf. pumilus, before Christel Kasselmann identified the plant as Pogostemon sampsonii. Narrow, pointed leaves radiate from the stem in tight whorls, giving each shoot a symmetrical starburst texture that reads finer than P. stellatus and coarser than P. erectus.

Did you know

It managed to be misnamed twice before anyone got it right, spending years in the trade as a Limnophila and then as the wrong Pogostemon until Christel Kasselmann pinned it to a species described from southern China in the 1800s.

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