Helanthium sp. "Angustifolius, kleine Form"

Tropica company carries this plant under the name Echinodorus angustifolius (Tropica number 067B), however, it tends to stay distinctly smaller than the plant known as Echinodorus angustifolius in the hobby for decades. The latter grows leaves of a length of up to 60 (70) cm and a width of 5 mm (please see Helanthium bolivianum "Angustifolius").

Under certain conditions, Helanthium sp. "Angustifolius, small form" grows into a carpet of only 8 to 10 cm in height, however, if planted densely and provided with lots of nutrients, it can grow out to a height of around 20 (-30) cm. The leaves are only 4 mm wide and thus almost as narrow as those of H. bolivianum "Angustifolius". However, that aside, this plant resembles H. bolivianum "Latifolius" more closely.
The comparably narrow-leaved H. sp. "Longifolius" can be discerned from H. sp. "Angustifolius, small form" as its leaves do not narrow towards the leaf base.
The light green submersed leaf rosettes also remind of Helanthium tenellum "parvulum", however, when cultivated under the same conditions they tend to grow distinctly larger.
The plant forms literal runner chains, on which the young plants grow at distances of about 5 cm.

As emersed plant, Helanthium sp. "Angustifolius, small form" is very similar to H. bolivianum "Latifolius".

This narrow-leaved Helanthium variety is rather undemanding, reproduces moderately fast through runners and is highly suitable as a carpet-forming foreground plant for larger tanks. It is also nice when planted in loose groups in the middleground. Then it somewhat resembles Blyxa japonica.

-To be continued-