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Giant Vallis - in Flower!

Martin Fletcher

Martin Fletcher

Member
Joined
16 Apr 2013
Messages
41
Just noticed something very satisfying in the new forthcoming Discus tank - my Giant Vallis ( Vallisneria gigantea) is in flower!! 😀

A white flower on the surface along with a couple more buds. Funny thing is since transferring it from the community tank a few weeks ago there has been some die back and it's not currently looking at it's best.

OK - hands up all those that didn't know that Vallis flowers?

It puts out a very fast growing stem from the centre of the plant (last photo) with a white flower at the surface. The flowers that reach the surface are female and the male flowers develop lower down near the base of the plant. Pollination is thought to be via water movement.

Chuffed!

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These look identical to Sagittaria subulata flowers. I'm absolutely insistent that they are the same species!
 
Henry said:
These look identical to Sagittaria subulata flowers. I'm absolutely insistent that they are the same species!
Click to expand...

lol - I had a thick forest of 'Sag' in my other tank and had to tear it all out as fish were getting lost in it, But know what you mean it's just like Vallis, only not quite as tall!
 
Mine does the same every couple of months. It will flower for weeks at a time!

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Hi all,
Interesting thread and nice flower.
Henry said:
Sagittaria subulata
Click to expand...
I'm not sure it is Vallisneria either, both it and Sagittaria would have 3 petalled flowers, but I think the petals on Vallisneria are really small, and one is often missing all together.

Also it looks like Martin's flower has stamens, and in Vallisneria it is an all female flower ("pistillate") that emerges emeresed, the male flower is separate and releases its pollen under water.

Sorry it is an awful drawing, but it was the best image I could find.
vallesn.gif

cheers Darrel
 
Very interesting Darrel, I ended up with 5x 3 petal flowers on the surface but no male flowers lower down and there are not any seed pods developing, nor is the flower stem coiled.

The thing is then, if it's not Vallisneria gigantea or Vallisneria - what is it? The tank is 2 ft deep to give an idea of how long it's grown.Sagittaria, whilst it does look very similar and can grow to about 5 inches certainly doesn't grow this tall - does it? It's not a good photo because of the reflections but you can see the plants and the flower stems at the top.

You have certainly got me wondering now!

Martin

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This is one of my tanks that is planted almost exclusively with Sagittaria subulata. Growth height varies massively. I find it tends to be older plants that put out the taller leaves.

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Hi Henry, well they have certainly grown taller in there - Looks great, always liked the 'jungle' look!
 
I find neglect is the best method of achieving it 🙂 The killifish love it in there. It's a super low maintenance tank; it doesn't even have a filter!
 
Excellent - I thought about Killifish a while back but decided to go with Discus in the end. I know if you have a really well planted tank they can take the part of a filter but obviously it depends on the bio load of the chosen fish.
 
Thanks Darrel, It's certainly given me something to think about but I didn't realise that Sagittaria subulata can grow that tall, so I suspect you may well be right. Thanks for the expert advice.
 
Now you have got me thinking too, as mine seems identical to Martin's. I was pretty sure I never added any vallis to my set-up, although I did have some short (dwarf) type sag in there. I did just leave it for about a year (jungle look) and when I finally did a rescape I had loads of really tall 'vallis' - it's about 2 foot tall in places! Can this really be mature sag or did some vallis get into my tank hidden amongst some other plants?
 
dw1305 said:
Hi all

With the 3 petals it must be another member of the Hydrocharitaceae (Vallisneria, Limnobium) or Alismataceae (Sagittaria, Echinodorus etc). Sagittaria subulata would still be my guess. <http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f24/sagittaria-subulata-dwarf-sag-flowering-sequence-new-pic-93769.html>.

cheers Darrel
Click to expand...
I go with Darrel on this one...Sag subulata can grow to different sizes in various tank set-ups.
Even lighting can determine how compact it grows.
When i had this plant in a mature non Co2 tank it flowered a few times.....flower was same as pictured.
Cheers
hoggie
 
Manrock said:
Now you have got me thinking too, as mine seems identical to Martin's. I was pretty sure I never added any vallis to my set-up, although I did have some short (dwarf) type sag in there. I did just leave it for about a year (jungle look) and when I finally did a rescape I had loads of really tall 'vallis' - it's about 2 foot tall in places! Can this really be mature sag or did some vallis get into my tank hidden amongst some other plants?
Click to expand...

You see, thats exactly what I mean - mine is almost 2 ft tall, the tank is 2ft deep but of course theres a few inches of substrate, so nearly 2ft. So just how does one decide what it actually is, is it Sag gone wild or is it Vallis, I always assumed it was Giant Vallis and I'm pretty sure thats what it wa sold as although it's a long time now since I bought plants.
 
hogan53 said:
I go with Darrel on this one...Sag subulata can grow to different sizes in various tank set-ups.
Even lighting can determine how compact it grows.
When i had this plant in a mature non Co2 tank it flowered a few times.....flower was same as pictured.
Cheers
hoggie
Click to expand...

I think we are coming to this conclusion but it would be good to know how we can make a positive ID, I finished up with 5 flowers coming off the top of the stalk in a branch, but no male flowers which I believe should appear at a lower level.
 
Now I know for the sure the stuff thats covering the foreground in this photo is Sag, (taken in January) it all grew in a matter of weeks from 5 small pieces that someone gave me - BUT on the left of the photo you can see some of the Giant Vallis that I transferred into the Discus tank which are the ones that flowered, now this was planted long before I got the Sag. Shortly after this photo was taken I ripped all the Sag out to get the sandy beach back for the Corys. Don't worry though, it all went to good homes.

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hogan53 said:
Hi
Gaint Vallis has about a thumb width wide leaf when fully grown.
hoggie
Click to expand...

Ah right, well this is only about half a thumb, at the most so I think we can rule out Giant Vallis then - that narrows it down now to tall Vallis or Sag subulata growing like mad!
Are we getting somewhere now???
 
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