cousinkenni

Was it ever decided what the plant in skewlboy's first photo was?.......to me it looks identical in color and growth style to "mini buttefly"

skewlboy

I have them both - here is the pic side by side

cousinkenni

Once again in an attempt to clear things up......So the plant in post #1 by skewlboy is being called what exactly????? Rotala macrandra super red????? I think it needs a better name cuz it doesn't look too much like a macrandra from that photo. Now the plant that Ashappard links to in post #5 and posts a photo of in post #10 looks like a macrandra of sorts. I know that it is mentioned that it may be "scale of our pics" but to me (from these two photos) the two plants look nothing alike.

Skewboy also posts a photo in post #12 (photo 2 of the post) where the super red is next to the butterfly. In this photo the leaves are not that much bigger than butterfly 1.5-2x max. While in Ashappard's photo the butterfly is clearly 2-3x larger, if not more. So are you guys sure you two have the same plant that you are both calling super red?

I personally like skewlboys version better (no offense Ashappard). Maybe skewlboy just takes better photos

Thanks again guys,

Ken T.

ashappard

phht, no offense taken.
easier maybe to see them as Rotala macrandra variants. Like the dozens of R.rotundifolias floating around with exotic trade names.

The 'super red' is extremely plastic like many Rotalas. Last count, I had seen over 20 vars of just R.macrandra but several can be attributed to growing conditions. When I started with R.macrandra super red, it looked more like R.magenta (aka R.macrandra narrow) than what I ended up with. You can really twist the appearance of the macrandras with macro ratios.

I think I see Rotala mexicana 'belem' in one of skewlboy's shots. Short, and in front of the ludwigia inclinata.

bsmith

Here are some pics. These are in my nano ada mini m with 2-13w ottlite desk lamps, pressurized co2, tropica plant nutrition+, flourish and flourish Fe.

Super Red




Macandra narrow



R.Belem



This is r.macandra green that morphed form r.butterfly I received a few months back. On right.

cousinkenni

I agree completely, which is why when i ask for photos I ask for the plants next to known standards such as colorata, regular macrandra, or regular rotundifolia. If you grow the plants next to each other in the same tank under the same conditions and they still grow differently from the "known standars" then it is safe to say that they are true variants rather than the same plant pretending to be a new variety (by being plastic through varying nutrients as you mentioned).

For instance I can grow regular colorata almost completely green even more green than the "H'RA" (aka gai lai) in the other thread or I can grow it as red, if not more red, as the "super red" in this thread.

For the record is it "gia lai", "gai lia" or "gai lai"???????

So ashappard..........of those 20 varieties, how many actually turned out to be different than regular macrandra. I have seen 5 true varieties........macrandra, magenta, macrandra green, macrandra green narrow, and butterfly.

i can't remember the story exactly (I will have to ask inspire about it) but I am pretty sure macrandra narrow green was found as an off shoot on either regular macrandra green or macrandra mini and if I am not mistaken butterfly either came off of narrow green or was mistakenly given along with narrow green. Don't quote me on this one, I will have to get the story straight first but I kind of remember either macrandra green throwing macrandra green narrow in my tank or the macrandra green narrow reverting back to macrandra green. It has been so long I can't remember. I will get the story and post it properly one day!

What I am trying to say is that there is a good possibility that they are all just mutant growth forms of the same species. Time will tell

skewlboy

I would agree to the better pics if only to say that adam has better plants

I'm not sure if Adam has the same plant as I do - I'm willing to send him a few stems and let him figure it out. We'll see what it looks like in bsmiths tank after it settles in.

ashappard

dont forget R.mac japan and R.mac variegated if those count. Both are stable and look different submersed next to the others over a fair amount of time. More stable vars are bound to crop up. Rotala is funny that way and I think we could make our own easily enough by letting the vars flower together and collecting seed.

also, R.macrandra mini butterfly = R.macrandra green acting funny? same for the rotala mini aka pearl etc.
I have flowers opening on the R.butterfly now. They appear to be mostly white. I'll get some pics up soon. I saw a pic of R.macrandra 'japan' flowers recently, they were pink but I dont know if it was a case of white balance in the photo or if pink was the color.

cousinkenni

Yeah,

Totally forgot about variagated.....I think I block that one out because I don' really like it.........i don't really like anything that is variagated.

On another note.....i have been out for over a year so WTF is R. Mac Japan?? Pictures????? Maybe I will do a search.

Hey ashappard, can you PM me your email address I would love to get up to speed on the rotalas and what has been found out about "varieties" over the last year or so. I made an excel sheet of all the rotalas that I had and were available a few years back and would love to update it. I have so many questions.........

As you can all tell, Rotalas are my favorite followed closely behind by Micros. Actually there was a 2-3 year time where all I kept were those two genera (that is if you don't count the mistake we made with "Rotala verticillaris").

Thanks,

Ken T.

ashappard

yeah for a while verticillaris was my favorite rotala. doh!
sending pm, always nice to hear from another rotala fan. skewlboy has been putting together a nice collection of them recently.

I think rotala mexicana 'belem' is my favorite now.
Its a fickle one though, stunts or loses color fairly easy.