Eriocaulon truncatum

[BenB]

I mention this plant on occasion, but no one ever comments. So I thought I'd make a post for others and me for future reference.
It is my favorite Erio. It is a darker green, doesn't get too big, and for me it has never sent up any seed stalks.

I find it easy to grow. I have high light but nothing crazy at 124PAR and high CO2, 50+ppm. It gets about max 3-4" and makes side daughter plants when large. I'm not sure my dosing scheme is. Sort of an EI daily dosing kind of thing.

What gets me is every autumn, it starts to melt. I'm not sure how it knows it's autumn with consistent light and a heater, but it must get a little cooler in the tank or something. The plant starts to turn brown and sends up (I'm not sure of the correct term) vegetative stalks with little plantlets on the ends. I've found you can plant these stalks into the substrate with the plantlet on top, and it will grow into a new plant. They've been easy to grow. This is the third year this has happened to me.
Pic of plantlets below. I'll try to get a better one sometime. All I had time for tonight was a crappy phone pic.

This year I divided one of the mother plants in hopes that it wouldn't fully melt and would regrow. That is still in progress.

Anyone else's experiences are welcome.



This plant is the same plant as the one on the right above.

 

[CincyScaper]

How deep are the roots ?do you go the full year without needing to uproot and replant ? The erios that I see on Dennis’s site seems so deep that it would make a mess of the foreground if uprooted.

 

[Capraquaria]

It is my understanding that many Erios are naturally short-lived, and 12=18 months might be what we could hope to expect for submerged grown plants. I know the E. cinereum I just planted considered to be short-lived. It flowers, spends its remaining energy on reproduction, and dies. Mine was actually flowering in the TC cup, so not sure how this planting round will go, but I did remove the flower stalks, and have the CO2 pretty hot so we'll see if it settles in. I presume your E. truncatum is behaving more like an annual plant. So the main parent plant melting every autumn is actually undergoing a pre-programmed senescence or cell death post reproduction, and just to be expected, as Dennis states here: "However, some species flower under water as a sign of the end of their life cycle (E. polaris, cinereum). Such species should be divided before the end of their life cycle to ensure a constant supply of new baby plants." That it is more related to timing, rather than tank conditions (temp etc). The fact it is producing plantlets on stalks, more like Eleocharis vivipara, is interesting. Does it ever produces plantlets lateral to the crowns? I am starting to find this genus quite fascinating!

 

[artandsoul]

It is my understanding that many Erios are naturally short-lived, and 12=18 months might be what we could hope to expect for submerged grown plants.

with splitting and replanting smaller plants like the erio Vietnam do new plants have the new 12 month shelf life. I thought they were like blyxa grow split and get more didn't know they melted off later. Is that just certain plants and not all?

 

[JayP]

with splitting and replanting smaller plants like the erio Vietnam do new plants have the new 12 month shelf life. I thought they were like blyxa grow split and get more didn't know they melted off later. Is that just certain plants and not all?

My erio Vietnam hasn't exhibited any kind of "shelf life". It just grows and grows and grows.

 

[Capraquaria]

My erio Vietnam hasn't exhibited any kind of "shelf life". It just grows and grows and grows.

My Vietnam hasn't melted either, but it has also never flowered. I don't think all Erio's are created equal. Some seem more likely to produce daughter plants lateral to the main plant, reproducing via splitting their crowns, like E. ratnagiricum, and behave more as perennial plants under water. Whereas others are monocarpic, and readily send up flower stalks, prior to the parent plant melting away. Erio Vietnam seems to behave more like an aquatic perennial submerged, and reproduces by crown splitting, rather than blooming/seed production. I think the species more prone to flowering under water, like E. cinereum, behave more as annuals in the aquarium, and melt after blooming.

 

[BenB]

How deep are the roots ?do you go the full year without needing to uproot and replant ? The erios that I see on Dennis’s site seems so deep that it would make a mess of the foreground if uprooted.

The roots are pretty deep. I could have gone a year without uprooting, but I wish I had divided it before it started to melt to see if it would not melt. I wouldn't consider this a foreground plant. It's a bit large for that.

 

[Burr740]

Ben what happens to the original after the melt phase, does it ever live or possibly be salvaged? Like others said I believe its just a normal end of its life phase. I had it briefly some years ago. Thought it was gonna be like a bigger vietnam, turned out more like a twin sister with severe emotional issues lol

My Vietnam hasn't melted either, but it has also never flowered. I don't think all Erio's are created equal. Some seem more likely to produce daughter plants lateral to the main plant, reproducing via splitting their crowns, like E. ratnagiricum, and behave more as perennial plants under water. Whereas others are monocarpic, and readily send up flower stalks, prior to the parent plant melting away. Erio Vietnam seems to behave more like an aquatic perennial submerged, and reproduces by crown splitting, rather than blooming/seed production. I think the species more prone to flowering under water, like E. cinereum, behave more as annuals in the aquarium, and melt after blooming.

Thats a good summarization

Vietnam is awesome, one of the most underated plants in the hobby for scaping with imo

 

[mrmoss]

I commend you for being able to keep the plant for a year long. The plant is very hard to grow like the la lindosa . If things arent right it can have a drastic swing. For me I introduced the plant in April. BTW I liked how Winston propagated it. The structure looked different. So I introduced it in April and for the longest time it grew super slow. Just left it alone for months. Late pasts months it started making daughters. Then last month I setup my pure erio tank. And i decided to transfer it to that tank. Daughters weren't fully developed yet but I decided to split it anyways and into 3 plants it went. The plants dont look good but no melting or at least not much. Theyre beginning to shoot flower stalks with adventitious plantlets which i think is great as I wasnt multiplying this plant for a long ass time. Question: have any of your adventitious plantlets melted? Mine have. Right now i got two good plantlets so will do what you said as soon as theyre big enough, pull the stalk and plant it that way. Time will tell whether the adult/daughter melt away but for you 1 year is a very long time for plants. My statement in my thread about needing an established tank is now false as my erio tank is new so that leads me to accuse co2...Joe commented right its like vietnams twin sister...size is similar the truncatum is just way more picky.

There it is in May top slight left and pictures following current, 2 daughters and the base plant. You can see each daughter formed x1 plantlet. I dont know if you can see any melting adventitious plants. I dont have more in between timeframe pics or maybe? I dont feel like scrolling my camera roll hehe





I know they dont look like much but from what im seeing I dont think theyre gonna melt away