The elusive C. ciliata spathe

I have seen C. ciliata countless times during my numerous past field trips to Malaysia and Indonesia but I just did not have the luck to locate the spathe at all. Therefore when my explorer friend told me that he had spotted the spathe of C. ciliata in Mr Teo's farm yesterday, I immediately arranged with him to visit the farm today to see it myself.

Mr Teo's farm (click here to read past posts with photographs of Mr Teo's farm) consist of large concrete tanks filled with soil / mud / sand and fertilised using chicken poo.

Some of the tanks have shallow depth and can be used for emersed cultivation only while others have sufficient depth to be filled with water for immersed cultivation as well. The C. ciliata specimens were grown emersed and there were many blooming specimens with spathe at varying stages.

 

 

The specimens should belong to C. ciliata var. latifolia due to the broader leaves and presence of multiple upright offshoots around the base of the plant.

The limb is reddish in colour with pronounced yellow raised rim at the collar area. The yellow colour spreads outwards from the collar area to the limb by forming yellowish bulges on the surface of the limb. The throat is white in colour speckled with red spots.

 

 

 

One of the main characteristic of C. ciliata are the cilia which are hair-like or thread-like structures growing along the edges of the limb.

 

 

 

 

The cilia could not be seen on the external of the new spathe which is not opened yet so they should be developing internally. I should have cut open the limb section to take a look at what is happening during this stage but I forgot...

As usual, we cut open the kettle section to observe the male and female sections of the flower. The kettles are rather protected by the base of the leaves and we need to bend the leaves down to expose the kettle and the peduncle sections.

Both kettles which we cut had dead insects trapped inside. The kettles' "skin" are rather thick and fibrous as I was the one cutting them open with a pen knife. The typical lack of style with the stigma sitting on the ovaries could be observed as well.

 

 

Finally, I managed to see no just one but many spathes of C. ciliata after so many years of interest in cryptocorynes.

spathe of C. lingua from Mr Teo's farm

I went to Mr Teo's farm recently and saw a fibre tank full of C. lingua growing emersed in a mixture of soil and chicken poo.

 

 

 

I had seen C. lingua spathe in the nature previously when I visited Sarawak but the spathe was not opened yet then. Therefore I took the opportunity this time round to take photographs of the blooming C. lingua spathes I found in the farm.

 

 

 

 

My experience is that it is not easy to grow C. lingua emersed in my cultivation tank but look at these healthy specimens grown by Mr Teo in his farm exposed to the environment!

Another day at the farm

I went to my explorer friend's cryptocoryne farm today to get my hands dirty to do some farming works for some of the excess cryptocorynes he collected from Anambas Island. It started to rain heavily after lunch.

Below are some photographs of my friend's current cryptocoryne collection.

After the rain, we visted an aquatic plant farm (Teo Farm, which is a well known farm for many local hobbyist) to see how they plant their cryptocorynes emersed. They have both submersed and emersed ponds to grow various different types of aquatic plants.

The cryptocorynes are mostly grown emersed but are mostly the Sri Lankan species commonly supplied to the local fish shops. C. lingua and C. pontederiifolia could be found too. The substrate used is sandy soil heavily fertilised with chicken poo. The ponds are in the open with shading sheets covering the entire farm to reduce the impacts from direct sunlight. The growth was considered as good in my opinion.

Maybe I should give up relying on fish tanks and artifical lightings and rent some farm spaces instead for my cryptocoryne cultivation too?