Saturday, January 28, 2012

Cryptocoryne noritoi 'East Kalimantan'

My explorer friend recently went to East Kalimantan and collected Cryptocoryne noritoi from there. I was lucky to obtain some live specimens as well as some preserved spathes. Below are some photographs of these specimens and spathes.
Note the cordate shape of the leaf which is mainly green in colour both at the upper and under sides. In my opinion, as compared to C. pontederiifolia and C. moehlmannii, the leaf edges of C. noritoi are slightly more wavy and the leaf bases are more cordate. And according to 'the crypt pages', the leaf veins have furrows (depressions) along them.
Some of the leaves were brown with some slight venation too.
Many specimens had fruits meaning that they were flowering profusely previously.
Although there was no live spathe found currently, I was lucky to be able to take the photographs of the spathes which were preserved in 70% alcohol by my friend.
I fished out a spathe from the alcohol to cut open the kettle. The colour of the limb had already faded.
Note the dark spot inside the kettle.
A poor fly was trapped in the kettle and was drowned in the alcohol dip.
The male and female flowers are as shown below.
Another preserved spathe which was not fully blooming yet was cut open for photograph taking.
Hopefully the specimens below grown in charcoal filter media will flower soon so that I can take the photographs of the fresh spathe for record.

5 comments:

Hermes said...

Great find as from the Wongso article it seems such an endemic. But cloned with its tolerance for a wide range of water conditions it would make a great aquarium plant.

阿峰 said...

Excuse me,illumbomb,long time no see^^
Sorry for bothering you.
I am 阿峰 (a Cryptocoryne hobbyist in Taiwan) and collect some great photo of Cryptocoryne
to complete my 'The Photographic Guide To Cryptocoryne ' at present.
You have many wonderful habitat photo of Cryptocoryne and i promise that i won't use them
illegally or in business.Just for my hobby..^^
would you like to let me use your some photo?
http://cryptocoryne.tw/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=29
Thank you
cheers
阿峰

illumbomb said...

Hi 阿峰, I am ok with you using my cryptocoryne habitats photographs in your new forum. So when are you targeting to open your forum?

阿峰 said...

Hello
Thank you for your kindness.
Welcome to my forum and it is opening now^^
There are too many spam or bot on the Internet ,
so i offer members authorization to access my forum manually.
(Most forum offer authorization automatically)
However...it's a pity that there are few cryptocoryne hobbyist in Taiwan now...
some of cryptocoryne hobbyists i know give up the hobby for different reasons,
the others suddenly disappeared without saying a word....
hahaha....

zarya said...

Hi,illumbomb:
I am zarya,one of the few exsiting cryptocoryne hobbyists in Taiwan and also a constant follower of your blog,It's glad to see 阿峰's comment here. haha....