Joined
·
540 Posts
San Marcos Crypts
Some things I've found out.
The San Marcos river starts in the middle of the town of San Marcos. It just pops out of nowhere. Several hundred miles away there is a river that just disappears. The distance between these two points is a major underground aquifer in Texas.
The becketti is in the first three miles of the San Marcos River before it meets and joins with the Blanco River. They say that this pure aquifer/spring water is a contant 72 degsF throughout the year. This is in a part of Texas that gets pretty cold in the winter and has frosts.
So the Crypts are in a very isolated area with a very unusual type of water, and environment. I'm sure the colder winter water from the Blanco River dampens the becketti's invasiveness when its root pieces get that far. Otherwise the plant would have grown down all the way to the Gulf of Mexico (over 200 miles away). It is interesting that Kasselmann says that it "also supposedly occurs in the springwater of wells." (I wonder where she read that?) :wink:
Apparently this environment is so beneficial to the becketti that it becomes a super plant as far as growth is concerned. Supposedly they have to go down two feet into the substrate to remove the plants to prevent them from reproducing again.
Are we starting to see the correlation here? :wink:
I wonder if the conditions are similar in Florida?
Steve Pituch
Some things I've found out.
The San Marcos river starts in the middle of the town of San Marcos. It just pops out of nowhere. Several hundred miles away there is a river that just disappears. The distance between these two points is a major underground aquifer in Texas.
The becketti is in the first three miles of the San Marcos River before it meets and joins with the Blanco River. They say that this pure aquifer/spring water is a contant 72 degsF throughout the year. This is in a part of Texas that gets pretty cold in the winter and has frosts.
So the Crypts are in a very isolated area with a very unusual type of water, and environment. I'm sure the colder winter water from the Blanco River dampens the becketti's invasiveness when its root pieces get that far. Otherwise the plant would have grown down all the way to the Gulf of Mexico (over 200 miles away). It is interesting that Kasselmann says that it "also supposedly occurs in the springwater of wells." (I wonder where she read that?) :wink:
Apparently this environment is so beneficial to the becketti that it becomes a super plant as far as growth is concerned. Supposedly they have to go down two feet into the substrate to remove the plants to prevent them from reproducing again.
Are we starting to see the correlation here? :wink:
I wonder if the conditions are similar in Florida?
Steve Pituch
