C. sp. 'Sumatra - Indragiri East 3' spathe

Today I went to my friend's farm again and managed to take some photographs of a blooming spathe of C. sp. 'Sumatra - Indragiri East 3'.

I also took some photographs of a species of aglaonema from Sumatra with beautiful green camouflage coloured leaves.

C. sp. 'Sumatra - Indragiri East'

My explorer friend collected cryptocoryne specimens from 4 locations around Indragiri East region in Sumatra recently. Out of the specimens from 4 locations, 2 of them had unopened spathes attached. He termed these 2 locations as. C. sp. 3 and C. sp. 4. from Indragiri East. We cut opened the immature spathes to take photographs in case they melt away without blooming.

C. sp. 3 'Indragiri East 3'

Fruits was found for C. sp. 'Indragiri East 3'. The olfactory bodies distinctively had 2 colours. The limb was reddish in colour and had protuberances, they looked similar to those of C. sp. 'Lingga' in my opinion. See this link for photographs of the bloomed spathe taken by my explorer friend.

C. sp. 4

C. sp. 4 was very similar to C. sp. 3, the olfactory bodies had 2 distinct colours too.

Our "free" watch dogs greeted us when we left the farm.

C. sp. 'Kota Tinggi' flowered

After more than 2 years, my cultivated C. sp. 'Kota Tinggi' finally decided to flower again. I spotted the spathe since early May 2011 but only took a photograph of it during end May 2011 as below. The spathe had already rotated more than 90 degrees anti-clockwise since it first sprouted.

By the time the spathe bloomed, it had rotated another 180 degrees anti-clockwise. This phenomenon was not observed when compared to another cryptocoryne (i.e. C. nurii 'Central Pahang') which simultaneously flowered in the same tank during the same period.

Below are the close up photographs of the distinctive red crumpled surfaced limb of the spathe.

The red colour extended beyond the sharped folded collar down the throat.

As usual, I cut opened the kettle to take photographs of the spadix, stamens, flap (valve), appendix, pistals, styles, stigmas, olfactory bodies, etc.

When will it flower again?

Yet another day in the farm experimenting with cultivation methodologies

I spent an afternoon at my friend's mini-farm yesterday, experimenting with different cultivation methodologies.

My friend had moved away from using small cultivation tanks for a long time. Currently, his plants are laid in plastic baskets with water spraying down and splashing at them 15 minutes every hour using a pump connected to mechanical timer. This will ensure that the plants are sufficiently wet, or at least keep the humidity level high around these concrete ponds.

Before letting your imagination run wild thinking that all the plants shown in the above photographs are cryptocorynes, I better inform you that they are not. Most  of them are actually bucephalandra. Let your imagination run wild now if you are a bucephalandra fanatic! The below photograph shows one of the very rare mutated monster bucephalandra under his collection.

As you can see from the below photograph, my friend is trying out using used active charcoal filter media (free of charge, left over from adjacent fish farms) as substrate instead of soil-based substrate for some of his cryptocorynes collection.

The below photograph shows another trial using rock wool as substrate, again instead of soil-based substrate.

Some specimens of C. striolata collected from west Kalimantan by my friend are currently being cultivated just by placing them on a layer of rock wool. We spotted a beautiful budding spathe with yellow tip.

The leaves of these C. striolata specimens are quite beautiful too.

There were some fibre tanks which are filled with higher levels of water. Some cryptocorynes cultivation trials are being conducted here too.

My friend was kind enough to let me have a small space in one of such tanks to play around with my own cryptocorynes. I selected a few pots of cryptocorynes from my home's cultivated tanks to be relocated here instead, hoping that the change in environment (i.e. water condition, water level, temperature, humidity, etc) will spur these pots of cryptocorynes to exhibit better growth as compared to their current lacklustre performance.

I also lined a basket with filter sponge and filled the space with "aquarium soil" to see whether the increased permeability (i.e. allowing for more water to flow through the substrate as compared to those in pots with only a few holes at the bottom) will improve the plant growth or not.

Hopefully all these changes above will prove to be beneficial to the plants. My friend is also lucky to have beautiful show dogs from the neighbouring farm to help him to guard his mini plant farm free of charge.