Vallisneria

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Vallisneria (lat. Vallisneria) - a moisture-loving submerged perennial belonging to the Vodokrasovye family.

Description

Vallisneria is endowed with creeping, rather thin and very long rhizomes, and its stalks, densely covered with rosette-like leaves, are fixed in the soil near the mother bushes with the help of powerful shoots of very impressive length.

Vallisneria's leaves are quite soft, and their color can be either reddish or bright green. Almost always, these leaves are completely submerged in water. Moreover, they can be either whole-edged or finely serrated at the tops along the edges. Sitting in basal rosettes, the leaves are always lanceolate or ribbon-like linear, and the leaves located near the bases sometimes differ in a rather interesting heart-shaped shape. Sometimes branched well-developed stems with alternate leaves can also be found, which are sometimes whorled and covered with tiny axillary scales. As for the spiral vallisneria, it is the happy owner of funny spiraling leaves. The length of the leaves of this water beauty can reach one meter. In the vast majority of varieties of Vallisneria, the leaves, having reached the water surface, begin to creep along it, beautifully fluttering with a playful current. This feature distinguishes this plant from arrowheads.

The beauty of Vallisneria is a dioecious plant: exclusively male flowers are formed on one part of it, and female flowers on the other. They can be either rather ordinary-looking and small, or rather large, protruding above the water surface and endowed with conspicuous perianths. All the flowers of this plant either fold into fancy semi-umbrellas, or are arranged singly.

Where grows

Most often, you can meet Vallisneria in fresh subtropical and tropical water bodies of the Eastern or Western Hemispheres. On the territory of Russia, only one of its varieties grows - spiral vallisneria.

Usage

Vallisneria has long attracted enthusiastic aquarists with its amazing beauty and unpretentiousness. It is one of the most popular aquatic plants used in aquariums. As a rule, Vallisneria is planted in compact groups either along the corners of the containers, or in the middle or in the background.

Growing and caring

Reproduction of Vallisneria can occur both by seed and vegetative way, and in the second case, it reproduces at almost lightning speed. Tiny buds are formed on slightly buried into the soil or on the most delicate shoots creeping along its surface, which after a while are gradually transformed into miniature daughter plants. Instantly rooting in the ground, they throw out tiny cuttings for new young specimens. If conditions are favorable, Vallisneria can form up to fifty new bushes in one single year.

This aquatic inhabitant is very unpretentious to the conditions of detention. It does not impose any requirements on the chemical composition of water. In addition, Vallisneria bravely withstands even excessively sharp temperature fluctuations and is equally active in both natural and artificial lighting. The only thing is that this plant does not tolerate excess copper, which can easily end up in an aquarium along with drugs that kill all kinds of mollusks and algae, as well as drugs for fish. In the presence of rust (that is, iron oxide) in the water, the beauty of Vallisneria can also die - special vigilance should be exercised by the owners of frame aquariums equipped with steel corners.

The most optimal temperature for the favorable development of Vallisneria will be in the range from twenty-four to twenty-eight degrees. If the temperature falls below eighteen to twenty degrees, the plant will slow down its growth. Soils for vallisneria are best selected not poor, but sufficiently nutritious, and water that does not require constant replacement. In addition, from time to time it is necessary to thin out the thickets of this plant, without cutting its leaves - turning yellow in the places of the cuts, the leaves very quickly begin to rot.