Saturday, May 15, 2010

Bucephalandra, a genus of Aroids endemic to Borneo

My explorer friend found many species of Bucephalandra during his various field trips to Borneo. These plants are endemic to Borneo (both in Sarawak and Kalimantan) and can be found growing on rocky + sandy banks of rivers with changing water levels throughout the year (i.e. sometimes emersed, sometimes submersed). It is considered as a rheophyte.
Below are photographs of some of the various species of Bucephalandra found by him, I believed some of them might not been identified yet.
These Bucephalandra seemed to be rather hardy and easy to cultivate and can be tied to driftwood, similar to Anubias or simply be thrown inside water (see below).
These plants are apparently quite popular in Japan now and have reached similar status or even over taken exotic cryptocorynes in terms of being sought after for collection. Hobbyist are now collecting them to understand the variants among specimens found at different localities in Borneo.
Anyone has any experiences in these plants? Can they be easily sustained long term submersed in planted tanks set ups? I don't seemed to be able to find much information on Bucephalandra in the popular aquatic plant books and websites.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Holy F*c&ing shit! Illumbomb! Long time no hear/ see man! I just discovered this aroid, googled it and your blog came up! Woah total blast from the past man!

Great to see you're still into aroids and doing field work with our 'explorer' friend lol. Will email you soon!

Zane.