C. longicauda 'Bintan' and 'Johor'

I have a few specimens of C. longicauda from various locality, some were bought from other collectors while others were collected by my explorer friend and passed to me. The first C. longicauda I obtained was from Pantu in Sarawak (East Malaysia) and it is quite beautiful with brownish leaves as compared with those from other localities. However, as I had just started my cryptocoryne collection then without a proper tank, I grew it inside a mineral water bottle setup with GEX substrate and managed to kill it quite effortlessly!

My 2 specimens of C. longicauda 'Bintan' were found and collected by my friend and I believed that it could be a new record in terms of locality since I have not read about this on the Internet at all. However, it is not surprising since C. longicauda distribution is rather widespread, ranging from Malay Peninsula to East Malaysia to Sumatra. My 2 specimens collected had up-opened spathes attached but unfortunately both the spathes melted without opening under my cultivation...... sigh :-P From my personal observation, the spathes of the specimens from Bintan are much smaller than those from Johor.

I almost had the opportunity of visiting the location earlier this month to learn more about the natural habitat but could not make it due to not being able to re-schedule my ferry to a later time. But my friend brought back a bottle of water collected from that location to satisfy my curiosity: pH = 6.6.

My friend also had the great fortune to be able to visit the natural habitat of C. longicauda in Johor. According to him, the habitat is actually some man made ditches (so I do not think that the pH would be very low for this location too). He collected 2 specimens with spathes again and passed them to me and fortunately this time round, at least one of the two spathe managed to open (well, at least for a while before falling).

I also have one specimen from Marup / Engkilili in Sarawak bought from a fellow collector as shown below. I am however clueless of the natural environment of the habitat there since it is a little too far for me to visit (anyone who have visited that locality before kindly let me know more about it, thanks!)

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone!!!