American pennywort
| American pennywort | ||||||||||||
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American pennywort ( Hydrocotyle verticillata ) |
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| Hydrocotyle verticillata | ||||||||||||
| Thunb. |
The American pennywort ( Hydrocotyle verticillata ) is a plant from the family of the Araliaceae (Araliaceae). The earlier common assignment to the umbelliferae family (Apiaceae) has been abandoned due to new morphological studies.
This type of plant is occasionally offered in specialist shops for planting aquariums and paludariums .
Appearance
In its overall form, the plant is similar to the common pennywort , which is native to Central Europe.
The American pennywort grows in the form of a creeping shoot with umbrella-like leaves between long internodes . It differs from the common pennywort that the internodes are up to 10 centimeters shorter than those of the Central European species. The leaf stalks are also somewhat shorter with five to twenty centimeters in length and the plant forms multiple whorled inflorescences . The common pennywort, on the other hand, has only one or two whorls.
The leaves, up to three centimeters in size, are light green, round and slightly notched on the edge. Leaves growing below the surface of the water remain slightly smaller.
The flowers are arranged in three to five-flowered umbels. The petals are white.
distribution and habitat
The American pennywort comes from the temperate and subtropical regions of North and South America . It thrives there in damp and wet locations such as flood plains and wet meadows. The plant can also be found on the edges of ponds, lakes, streams and rivers. Complete submerged growth is very rare in natural locations.
use
The American pennywort is used for planting aquariums, paludariums and glass vessels.
In the aquarium hobby, the plant is particularly popular as a foreground plant. However, it needs water temperatures between 15 and 25 degrees Celsius for healthy growth and is therefore out of the question for a number of tropical aquariums. The light requirement of the plant is very high; it thrives better when it receives more light from a spotlight than is normally the case for the plants in an aquarium. Their need for carbon dioxide , which has to be dosed accordingly, is also relatively high . It needs up to 10 milligrams of carbon dioxide per liter. However, unwashed, medium-grain sand covered with fine-grain gravel is sufficient as the substrate.
Even under optimal conditions, it only grows very slowly. Because of the delicate sprouts and roots, it is very difficult to keep in the aquarium in the long term. Even vacuuming the sludge with a sludge bell can result in sprouts being torn from the ground.
It is therefore more promising to keep them in a paludarium if it is not too warm. Culture is problem-free in the swamp part.
literature
- Bernd Greger: Plants in the freshwater aquarium. Birgit Schmettkamp Verlag, Bornheim 1998, ISBN 3-928819-16-X .
- Christel Kasselmann : aquarium plants. 2nd Edition. Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-8001-7454-5 , p. 305.
