Pygmy chain sword

Care at a glance

Overview

This is a classic easy carpeting plant for the foreground, planted as small clumps a few centimeters apart so the runner chains fill the gaps. It will grow in modest light with no CO2, but medium to high light plus CO2 and good nutrients give a much denser, faster turf. Plant individual rosettes rather than burying a whole mat, and trim runners to steer where it spreads. The usual pitfall is patchy, leggy growth in low light or lean substrate, so back it with root tabs and decent lighting.

In the wild

Helanthium tenellum has a broad American range, from the eastern United States through Central America and into South America, growing in shallow margins of ponds, ditches and slow streams that may dry out seasonally. It is a tiny rosette plant that creeps across the substrate on thin runners, building chains of plantlets into a grassy turf. In the wild it often grows emersed in damp mud and only stays submerged when water levels rise.

Good to know

Long sold and described as Echinodorus tenellus, it was moved to the genus Helanthium along with the other chain swords, so Echinodorus tenellus is now a synonym. Its 'runners' are actually modified flowering stalks (stolon-like inflorescences) that produce daughter plants instead of, or alongside, flowers. Submerged narrow-leaf forms stay only 1 to 2 mm wide and a few centimeters tall, while emersed plants look quite different and can flower.

Did you know

Did you know the 'micro sword' name causes constant mix-ups? True micro sword is Lilaeopsis, a different plant, but pygmy chain sword is often sold under that name, so check the Latin to know which grass-like carpet you are actually buying.

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