Nymphoides Hydrophylla 'Taiwan' stunted?

[Courtneybst]

Hello,

I have this plant in my scape and it used to grow right to the top of the tank (2ft). Now it stops at around 10 inches.

I did one big trim a few months ago because it was so large. Apparently these plants can be trained to stay small by regular pruning.

Does that mean it's now permanently small? Or will it soon be restored to its former glory?

Thanks

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

 

[Courtneybst]

Bump

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

 

[zozo]

Probably if you don't keep up with pruning it, it will

soon be restored to its former glory

I never prune my 2 nymphoides and they only make long leaf stalks with floater leaves. Once there are enough floating leaves it stops making submeresed form leaves. Same actualy goes for the Nymphaea spp. or for some Aponogeton spp. and many other plants, it probably has to do with reaching the limitles atmospheric Co2 supply triggering the plant to stop making submersed form leaves and shoot out emersed forms. To prevent this if we only want to enjoy the submersed form, we have persevere with cutting off anything that's getting to close to the surface, this triggers the plant to grow more submersed form leaves. That has little to do with training.. It's just trimming.

Some small staying cultivars are crossbreeds, crossing plants from the same family with different characteristics and growing smaller could be one result of this cross breeding. And then sellectively grow on this smaller variety. Or this growing smaller is a genetic mutation, e.g. Anubias barteri nana-petite is such a dwarfed mutation.. Now i do not have an idea if nurseries have developed techniques to force this mutation up on a plant spp. I guess not. If so it is not done by prunning a new memory into the plant.. I guess it is more like this mutation probably already excisted in nature and is accidently discovered in a nursery and sellectively bred on into a somewhat permanent dwarfed strain.

 

[Courtneybst]

Probably if you don't keep up with pruning it, it will


I never prune my 2 nymphoides and they only make long leaf stalks with floater leaves. Once there are enough floating leaves it stops making submeresed form leaves. Same actualy goes for the Nymphaea spp. or for some Aponogeton spp. and many other plants, it probably has to do with reaching the limitles atmospheric Co2 supply triggering the plant to stop making submersed form leaves and shoot out emersed forms. To prevent this if we only want to enjoy the submersed form, we have persevere with cutting off anything that's getting to close to the surface, this triggers the plant to grow more submersed form leaves. That has little to do with training.. It's just trimming.

Some small staying cultivars are crossbreeds, crossing plants from the same family with different characteristics and growing smaller could be one result of this cross breeding. And then sellectively grow on this smaller variety. Or this growing smaller is a genetic mutation, e.g. Anubias barteri nana-petite is such a dwarfed mutation.. Now i do not have an idea if nurseries have developed techniques to force this mutation up on a plant spp. I guess not. If so it is not done by prunning a new memory into the plant.. I guess it is more like this mutation probably already excisted in nature and is accidently discovered in a nursery and sellectively bred on into a somewhat permanent dwarfed strain.

Thanks for the information! So do you reckon this Nymphoides will permanently stay small? It used to be very tall.

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

 

[zozo]

So do you reckon this Nymphoides will permanently stay small?

For a Nymphoides a short leafstalk with a large leaf is submersed grow form and a long leafstalk with a very small leaf is floating leaf grow form. This leave will grow bigger once it reached its destiny, the surface....
If you stop trimming it it will grow bigger again and leafes will finaly reach the surface. As said above at the surface it will get atmospheric CO² and trigger the plant to start growing its emersed form. And if you never trim it, it will finaly completely stop growing submersed form leaves and only shoot out leafstalks with floater leaves and maybe flowers.

Thus, if it gets enough ferts and light you need to keep up with trimming off leaves that get close to the surface. only then it will keep making submersed form leafs. You can slow this process down with depriving it from light and ferts, but then you might end up with an unhealthy plant with leaves melting away before they ever reach the surface. So either way, trimming it off is essential..

 

[Oldguy]

permanent dwarfed strain.

You can get dwarf/pygmy temperate water lilies for water barrel ponds but they are expensive delicate and lack vigor. Floating leaves the size of a finger nail, could never get them to flower.

 

[zozo]

You can get dwarf/pygmy temperate water lilies for water barrel ponds but they are expensive delicate and lack vigor. Floating leaves the size of a finger nail, could never get them to flower.

Do you know what sp. they are.. I suspect they are the common pygmaea var. e.g N. p. helvola or N. p alba. They indeed are pretty small. The African N. nouchali als is very aqaurium suitable, i once got it to flower in the aqaurium.

Also the size of the tuber is very imorportant for the size of the plant. You can compare it with a potato that also a tuber.. It grows new plants from an eye in that tuber. You can cut the tuber into pieces and as long as the cut off piece has an eye it has the potential to grow a new plant. If you have a tiny piece of the tuber that grows a new plant, this plant will be tiny too. SInce a tiny tuber doesn't store the mass and energy to grow a big plamt. Than it'll take sevral years for the tuber to grow and mature and it will grow tiny leaves the first years. Even if you take a rathe rlarge Nymphaea sp. as long as you start with a tiny tuber it stay super small for a few years.

This is cut from a lily that is commonly descriped as not aqaurium suitable. And cut from a big tuber that was + 50 x that size. Go figur.... Still growing it in th esame to small aqaurium for 4 years now. Slightly bigger, but far from mature, still have a few years to go.

I'm not 100% sure on how long it takes. But the nymphaea needs a degree of maturity before it flower.. Periode will vary in different circumstances (light, soil , temp etc.) it can grow faster ofcourse. But a few years at least if you start this small..

 

[Iain Sutherland]

Nymphiodes taiwan isn't a Lily as you know it, it's a rosette plant rather than tuber. It won't make surface leaves (its rumoured that it can but unlikely) once it hits the surface it will just make big leaves that float at the surface submerged.

It will do what you tell it to for size... you want it small then keep trimming bigger leaves, but let it be and it will slowly grow as big as you like.

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[zozo]

Nymphiodes taiwan isn't a Lily as you know it, it's a rosette plant rather than tuber. It won't make surface leaves (its rumoured that it can but unlikely) once it hits the surface it will just make big leaves that float at the surface submerged.

It will do what you tell it to for size... you want it small then keep trimming bigger leaves, but let it be and it will slowly grow as big as you like.

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Not so sure about that.. I guess it depends on the light source if you get it to make floaters and even flowers.
See this picture from tropica

https://tropica.com/en/plants/plantdetails/Nymphoideshydrophylla'Taiwan'(041B)/4462

That definitively is emersed leaf form growing there.. Seems Tropica cultivates them emersed on rockwool. Seen it at more nurseries with several Nympoides sp. growing it outside the water emersed in a pot.

I also have a small unidentified Nymphoides sp. growing it in the garden and it floats with 3 cm large leaf like a champion. But in the indoor tank it refuses to grow floaters. Best guess, aint no sunshine..

 

[Iain Sutherland]

Get what your saying Zozo however the experiences I've had with it and others was that it doesnt grow both. Once in a tank it grows taller leaves but they drape across the surface submerged, as per all the layout images on the link but doesn't grow 'Lily pads' once submerged.

Really it's by the by, as far as the OP goes it will get bigger fella.

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[Oldguy]

Do you know what sp. they are

Unfortunately not. It cost the wife £25 and came without cut marks on its tuber, which was about the size of a fat pea. The tuber never got bigger, we had it for about 5yrs. Produced a few tiny leaves each summer and in the end I moved it to a tropical tank thinking that the UK summers were typically to short and cool. It grow well for a while then faded away. Possibly not enough reserves in the tuber. A plant perhaps for the South of France. (now looking for research sponsors to send wife and self for very long term study at a 5 star hotel, all expenses paid some where in southern France, if only).

 

[zozo]

Get what your saying Zozo however the experiences I've had with it and others was that it doesnt grow both. Once in a tank it grows taller leaves but they drape across the surface submerged, as per all the layout images on the link but doesn't grow 'Lily pads' once submerged.

Really it's by the by, as far as the OP goes it will get bigger fella.

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Yup as said i experience the same thing with other nymphoides sp. and i still don't know which one it is, it yet didn't flower.. Smaller than the Taiwan. With lack of light it strugles and does not grow floaters. And what i find remarkable is indeed it keeps on growing a stem as you say drapping the submersed leaves along the surface.
It's this one in the indoor aquarium.

At first i thought it is a flow issue, because it's planted directly under the spraybar. But as you see there is a little flee floating runner i took from the garden and into the tank. And it also strugles to grow on even tho it simply floats.
Here is the same Nymphoides outdoor in the sun, excusively growing (also red colored) floaters

and new complete little floating plants with root development attached. (what is actualy the english botanical term for that vegitative propagation method - like a runner but than floating). Conclusion, with putting new little rooted mini floaters like this in the indoor aqaurium just floating around and refusing to grow. It must be a light issue.

The aqaurium actualy is also lit from a Skylight, it recieves a fair amount of daylight. But still aint enough during this time of year.. And indeed same as the Nymphaea depending on the light source they do not grow both forms, it is either submersed form or emersed form.

Tho the Nymphaea has transformation stages.. Also have one in this indoor tank and during the summer this nymphaea exclisively grows floaters. But nearing the fall is stops and starts growing submersed form leaves and slowly shedding it's floaters. This can take months for a floater to wear out of energy. And that time i have them both, sub en emersed for on the same plant. Sometimes i also see this in unnatural lit aqauriums, probably a tipping point confusing the plant and just enough light to grow both forms. In my case next spring it will revert this process again and sheds submersed form and grows floaters again.

Actualy funny to see this kind of addaptions happen and change with a tank that has a dynamical natural light source. It's intersting and helps to understand some plant sp. a little beter.

 

[zozo]

Unfortunately not. It cost the wife £25 and came without cut marks on its tuber, which was about the size of a fat pea. The tuber never got bigger, we had it for about 5yrs. Produced a few tiny leaves each summer and in the end I moved it to a tropical tank thinking that the UK summers were typically to short and cool. It grow well for a while then faded away. Possibly not enough reserves in the tuber. A plant perhaps for the South of France. (now looking for research sponsors to send wife and self for very long term study at a 5 star hotel, all expenses paid some where in southern France, if only).

Pitty you never found out the sp. But take in mind, lilies can be grown from seed.. And these seeds are very tiny and will produce very tiny plants which indeed need depending on invironment years to develop to mature plants. The best result is near stagnant water and very loamy and rich soils with a lot of sun. Depriving them from this they can go about dormant and than the tuber is prone to rot.

It is an experiment i have on my mind for some time now. Trying to get my hands on Nympaea seeds and grow an nymphaea carpet from them.
Never ever seen it before, but theoreticaly it should be possible. ALready collected flower buds and dried them, yet not enspected it for seeds. I guess i need to wait to find a source to order them from.

Could very well be you got a young plant growen from seed.

This is N. caerulea seeds..

https://shop.tranceplants.net/products/blue-water-lily-seeds