Cryptocoryne sp. 'Lingga 19 - Platinum Line'

The natural habitat of C. sp. 'Lingga 19 - Platinum line' was the first cryptocoryne location we went to on our 3rd day of our field trip. We had to bash a few hundred metres into a secondary forest / swamp to reach the stream where the cryptocorynes could be found.

The cryptocorynes were growing fully submersed in the stream, the water level was higher as compared to when my friend visited it previously a few months ago.

From the close up photographs, you could see the striking lighter coloured veins of the leaves.

I scooped a few inhabitants of the stream for photography purpose.

The lighter coloured veins seemed to be metallic in colour, which was why my explorer friend termed this cryptocoryne as "platinum line". The underside of the leaves were greenish in colour and the leaves were bullated.

A distance away, I found some cryptocoryne growing in emersed form on the steeper portion of the stream banks.

The substrate was muddy and the pH of the water was around 5.0.

I unwittingly walked into the web of this striking spider which landed on my head. I hated spider and immediately called out to my friend to help to remove it away from me. Was this a poisonous spider and what would happened if it had bit me? => turn into spiderman?

We found many specimens with unopened spathes as shown below. Fruits were found too. My friend previously cut an unopened spathe of this species before and the limb seemed as if it was red in colour, see this link for the photographs.

Back in the hotel, we attempted to cut open three of the unopened spathes we collected and were shocked to find out that two of the unopened spathes actually harboured caterpillars inside them. We were not sure what type of caterpillars they were or how did they entered the unopened spathe in the first place. It seemed that the caterpillars had fed themselves with the internal male and female portions of the flower.

One of the limb was yellowish in colour instead of reddish, unlike what my friend discovered earlier. Was the difference in colour due to the immaturity of the spathe or effects of the caterpillar attack, or was it because this species had varying coloured spathes? The limbs of the other two spathes reminded me of the surface of pancakes. Hahaha.

Below are the remaining immature male and female flower of the spathe which did not had any caterpillar.