Rotala sp. 'Enie'

This plant is a colourful Rotala, not yet identified to species level, with very fine, whorled, green to reddish, in part pink submersed leaves and a bright dark red to magenta stem. It was named as a cultivar by the company Dennerle after the TV presenter Enie van de Meiklokjes, who performed the naming ceremony herself at Interzoo 2010.

Rotala sp. 'Enie' can easily be confused with the very similar R. sp. “Vietnam”. The differences can be recognised in comparative cultivation: R. sp. 'Enie' forms somewhat shorter leaves, branches less strongly on its own and overall tends more towards red colouring than R. sp. “Vietnam”, whose leaves tend to show golden tones. Both plants are strongly reminiscent of Rotala wallichii, which, however, develops a green to light reddish stem and more or less light red leaves.

Another Rotala of the “wallichii type”, which had been imported to Germany as Pogostemon 'Superfine Leaf' or Pogostemon stellatus 'Superfine' (see Kramer 2009), cannot be distinguished from Rotala sp. 'Enie'. Tobias Coring found this out in 2012 by growing the two plants side by side for comparison. The plant presented as Rotala sp. “Thailand” on www.aquaticplantcentral.com may also be identical to R. sp. 'Enie'.