Re: Plants for Sale

[Neil Frank <nfrank@mindspring.com>]

>Pets Warehouse has a tremendous list of species on the web, but I have not
>been able to get an idea from trolling APD for comments about them, whether
>or not they can actually deliver all of them or even many of them.


FAN will not only be able to provide many if not most plants on our target
list, but they will be properly identified.

>If we are going to get started on this project, one of the early things we
>should do is work up the list of plants we could supply. 

The potential FAN list is quite large, and certainly bigger than anything
on the web. Getting this list shortened to a more reasonable number can be
done with a small committee of interested folks. I think that this is
important, but should be a second step. The first step is to decide if we
want AGA to sell plants.

 Some of the old
>favorites should be on the list, such as some varieties of vallisneria,
>sagitteria and Najas.  These are actually quite scarce in pet stores.  Some
>of the suppliers that advertise on the web seem to have a pretty good
>selection of Vallisneria, but they all seem to be pretty weak in Sagitteria
>and Najas.  

The list I mentioned is large but not infinite <g>. There are a lot of
native plants and different varieties of Sag which will probably not be on
the nursery list. This is because they find it hard to sell 2 varieties of
the same plant that look the same to most people. They don't even carry a
wide variety of crypts for the same reason, but can get them from the
specialized growers. I don't know any specialized growers for Sag.

That long, narrow-leaved variety of Sagitteria I sent you,
>Neil, is a very uncommon variety, to my knowledge.  Do you still have it?
>

The plant you mention I have learned is called S. filaformis.  I tried to
get rid of the one that you gave me -- I think it is the Florida varient. I
pulled it all out, but it still appears periodically in that tank. So, I
can save it and not throw it out the next time it appears if you like. I
now have another variety of filaformis that I collected in South Carolina.
If you can believe it, the leaves are even more narrow ~1mm wide, and not
as long... only 2-3 feet in lenght. The thinner leaves laying on the
surface don't cut down on the light as much. I am supposed to send some to
FAN because they want to cultivate it. Brad says he had it in cultivation
at one time but lost it. 

>It seems to me that most of the swords are readily available except for the
>small ones like E. tenellus, quadricostatus, and bolivianus.

These are all grown by FAN, as well as 2 varieties  of tenellus.
In fact, the new Pablo Teepoot book has pictures of all their plants and
may be a good catalog for people to use for ordering.

  (I am not
>checking the spelling of any of these names and am probably making
>mistakes).  The really rare one, that is supposedly easy to grow is E.
>agustifolius.

This is one that I don't think I have seen in person.
>
>The crypts are so hard to identify, and so many of the species have so many
>varieties that appear to merge with varieties of other species, that it is
>hard to know what is going on, or what varieties we should put on our hard
>to get list.  Possibly C. affinis, C. albida (costata), and the varieties
>of C. crispatula except var. balansae.  Just about any of the more well
>known species have varieties that may be hard-to-get and lusted after by
>Crypt enthusiasts.  Perhaps  a question posted on the crypts mailing list
>would be the way to find out what varieties are most sought-after in the
>USA.  The problem is, that if most crypt growers are like me, they are not
>sure what they have and whether or not it is rare, and every time they
>visit Jan Bastmeijer's pages, they get less sure.
>


Last year, I was told we could get the plants directly from Robert Gasser.
He is the only person in the US that I know who can correctly id his
plants. He is extremely careful about keeping the species separate, and all
were ID'd from their flowers either by himself or his friends at the
University in Europe.

 in 
>Unless all we want to do is ship stuff to members that Florida Aquatic
>Nurseries sends to us, we will have at least some members being in the
>business of mantaining species on the rare and unusual list. 

No.



 Ideally,
>plant sales would be handled by one individual who has a large number of
>tanks and can grow all the plants on the rare & unusual list. I don't think
>that is going to happen, and so a number of people will have to volunteer
>to keep the various species on the list,   Perhaps the questionnaire that
>Olga developed could be used to identify and keep track of people willing
>to do this and what species they are keeping.
>
>
>Paul Krombholz, in central Mississippi, where the July temperature average
>was only slightly above normal. Normal, however, is pretty miserable.  
>
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>End of MCM - Digest V1 #127
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