Plant collection – Boon Hao's collection Singapore

Cryptocoryne 2022

May 12, 2022May 12, 2022Posted in Cryptocoryne, Plant collectionTagged CryptocoryneLeave a comment

A small emersed collection update in 2022, I have choose to focus on a few species to collect since I have lesser time to maintain them now.

Some new species added to collection

October 10, 2021Posted in Cryptocoryne, Plant collection2 Comments

C. affinis
C. nurii var. raubensis
Emersed, about 1 month in.
A flower developing but got aborted in the end.
One of the rarest crypt i have obtained, C. alba
C. keei ‘green’ and ‘red’
A crypt which i haven’t seen since 2014. C. bullosa ‘black’
C. sp. natuna 8
C. hudoroi

Hopefully i can propagate and flower them in the next coming months. Also in this shipment i have C. thwaithesii but i am still waiting for them to develop before i show them.

Barclaya longifolia / Hydrostemma sp.

May 5, 2019Posted in Plant collectionLeave a comment

One of the rare water lilies out there…

I have the privilage to get this plant as a small seedling and for the past 3 years i have had a few hundred of this plant because the plant can reproduce asexually by self fertilizing it’s flower.

Barclaya longifolia is the easiest to care for from the Barclaya family of water lilies. I have tried to grow Barclaya motleyi as well as Barclaya kunstleri and only manage to keep them alive for a limited amount of time as both of them require black water conditions of grow submerge in water.

DSC_1581[1] — Due to the lack of root tabs, the flowers are rather small

DSC_1552[1] — A closed flower, possibly considered a fruit since it is plum, filled with fertilized seeds

DSC_1573[1] — The seeds have small tiny hair like structure which is hard.

DSC_1572[1] — The seeds usually float around for a while before sinking into the water

DSC_1566[1] — The seeds are surrounded and protected by a soft mucus tissue

DSC_1560[1] — About 1-2 months growth from seed

Since this plant readily reproduces, it can be easily shared amoung hobbiest interested in keeping it, but sadly it s disappearing in nature due to the upgrading of drains and the clearing of forests.

Cryptocoryne with a wrong name …

December 31, 2018Posted in Cryptocoryne, Plant collectionLeave a comment

Any plant with a given name should not be trusted unless one can be sure that it is that stated species. A good example would be this. This Crypt was sold to me as Cryptocoryne Pontederiifolia ‘red lip’. At first sight, it looked like Pontenderiifolia due to the shape of the leaves, however the leaves shape was also more pointed which made me doubt its origin. I was thinking of how this differed from the pontenderiifolia i first saw. which even the leave colour was darker than this plant.

A few weeks later this plant flowered and it turned out to be very different ….

This flower marries the characteristic of the yellow Pontenderfollia flower and the tall twisted limb of the flower of a Sri Lankan species . By the time I saw the strange flower, I was confirming with myself that this is definitely not ‘red lip’.

IMAG3285 — From the top the limb looks twisted

Special thanks to Luke for helping me identifying this plant 🙂

Hence if you compare the twist of the limb and the colour of the spathe, it perfectly matches the photo hence instead of pontenderiifolia ‘red lip’ it should be pontenderiifolia x Sri Lankan species, I presume its Cryptocoryne wendtii or Cryptoocryne undulata green because of the green coloured leaf and its leaf shape. These two species of crypt is also commonly available and grown together in aquarium plant farm.

Thanks for reading !

Over and out ! 🙂

Cryptocoryne Collection (1)

September 29, 2017September 29, 2017Posted in Cryptocoryne, Plant collectionLeave a comment

It has been a year since I started collecting Cryptocoryne, some have grown, some have died, however I would treat it as a learning process so that I am able to cultivate my plants more efficiently next time.