# Looking for Broad Leaved Water Sprite



## RMB2 (Oct 15, 2012)

Hi:
I'm new to this forum.  I am wondering if anyone has Ceratopteris Cornuta (Broad Leaved Water Sprite). I am looking to buy some if anyone has it.
I have attached a few pictures of it. I had it years ago. It seems to be very hard to find.
Most places have the Ceratopteris Thalictroides variety and the leaves are very thin.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

RMB2 said:


> Hi:
> I'm new to this forum.  I am wondering if anyone has Ceratopteris Cornuta (Broad Leaved Water Sprite). I am looking to buy some if anyone has it.
> I have attached a few pictures of it. I had it years ago. It seems to be very hard to find.
> Most places have the Ceratopteris Thalictroides variety and the leaves are very thin.


Actually, I've had the thin leave variety and it ended up growing broad leaves in my tank. I think it's a function of light, nutrient and possibly temperature.


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## RMB2 (Oct 15, 2012)

Yes, I heard that from someone else too. The one I had years ago, I bought broad leaved and it always stayed that way. In the process of searching for info, I came across someone else that was looking for it in the States and he said there were 2 different types. So I don't know if there is something to this or not.
We'll see what other responses come up.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

The problem here is that there is really just one plant, that has acquired more than one botanical name. Thalictroides is an older name that is no longer valid. Also, this plant grows very, very differently when floated than it does when planted. Planted, it produces very finely divided foliage, deeply indented, that is a bit thicker than the floating foliage is. 

Floating, it produces very wide, slightly wavy, but still deeply indented foliage, that spreads out quite widely and can cover a very large area with time. Fish like the hanging rootlets, and it's good for shade. Once it outgrows its space, you can toss it and lose all the nitrates the large one gathered while growing, much like duckweed, but it's nicer than duckweed and far easier to control.

Both forms grow numerous fernlets along the edges of many of the fronds. This is a true fern, so it has fronds, not leaves. The fernlets are soon able to grow on their own, even when quite tiny. But they will grow faster if left attached to the mother plant until they are larger. They are fast growers in general, even under quite low light.

This fern is eaten by some cultures, cooked and raw and one form, which is not used for aquaria, has been specially developed for use in research.

But the thing to know is that thalictroides and cornuta are the same plant. Common names include Water Sprite & Indian Water Fern, among several others. I think some of the confusion arises from the fact that the planted version looks so very different from the floating one, and that botanical names that have been declared invalid tend to persist, having been printed and published already, often for many decades after a change is made. 

Not many people are all that interested in botanical nomenclature, which is too bad, because it's the only way to ensure that you are researching the actual plant you want to learn about. Common names are just that, and sometimes many plants share the same common name. 

Many plants will have variable foliage, depending on whether they are grown submersed or emersed. If grown floating, this fern is actually growing emersed. If you look, you'll see that new fronds begin by growing upward, and only later do they lie flat on the water. So it gets most of it's C02 from the air, rather than the water when grown floating, which is one reason it does so well in such a wide variety of conditions in aquariums.


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## Guest (Oct 31, 2012)

Fishfur said:


> The problem here is that there is really just one plant, that has acquired more than one botanical name. Thalictroides is an older name that is no longer valid.


Who says its not a valid name?

Thalictroides is still a recognized species name by the majority of Pteridologists. There are enough taxonomical differences to make C. cornuta (cornutus) a distinct species from thalictroides. This has been argued over for years and probably will be for a while. I'd go with Kasselmann and say they are both valid. There is another species name that probably isn't valid, siliquosa, but until some definitive work is done on the genus some will still accept it as a separate species.

The plants shipped by Aqua Flora in BC under the name thalictroides are probably cornuta. They don't exactly look like the thalictroides being shipped by Oriental or Tropica or Florida Aquatic Nurseries.

here is the current accepted list of Ceratopteris species

http://homepages.caverock.net.nz/~bj/fern/ceratopteris.htm


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I thank you for the link. When I looked it up, it showed clearly that Cornuta is, in fact, the latest of the published names for this plant, and it is the latest published name that applies. But that does not mean everyone will agree with the second guy's assessment of the plant or the new name. These disagreements, arguments and ongoing reclassification of plants are practically food and drink to botanists. 

Common names are referred to as 'trivial names' which gives us an idea what botanists think of common names . I am not a great expert at nomenclature, but it's not difficult to understand it's basics. The generally accepted rule is that the latest published name in an acceptable journal or other publication is the name of any given plant, until someone else comes along to research that plant again and either agrees or disagrees and publishes their conclusions on the subject. But there have been some legendary disputes between experts in many cases.

I mainly wished to point out that botanical names ARE forever changing as new research, like tissue typing and DNA, is showing more and more plants that don't belong where previous or early researchers put them. So changes happen all the time. 

And every time a new person takes up the study of a family or plant, and if this person then properly publishes his/her conclusions in an appropriate journal or other publication, then a name change may occur. There are rules that govern this, which publications qualify, and they are to be peer reviewed, among other things. 

The name cornuta dates to 1830, so it's an old name and the plant has been known for a long time, and Thalictroides dates to 1821. Both names are still used, but if I understand the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature's rules at all, Cornuta, because it came later, is the correct name. 

The standard method of determining where a plant belongs is generally based on studying the most minute details of the flowers and how they differ or are similar. I have not learned what they compare for plants like ferns that have spores, but no matter what criteria are used, it can be quite difficult to keep up with the published changes in some plant families even if you ARE very interested in the nomenclature.

But for the hobbyist who wishes to grow this fern, in my opinion, they are the same plant. It is highly variable in form, which often leads to disagreements over names. Depending on the conditions they are grown in, one plant can look absolutely different from another.

I don't have time to read all the articles on all the plants I am interested in, but I do have some interest in the nomenclature of cactus.. and the arguments for them alone are never ending. The last major new work published on the cactus family was done by Anderson, and is 3 inches thick, coffee table size. His life's work and I have still not read the whole thing, though it has lovely pictures. 

And another thing is that a plant in it's native habitat can also look vastly different from one grown in any other circumstances, sometimes so different it will be given it's own name. And often several populations of a plant are found, with minor differences. At first they may all be given separate names, but later on it may be found they are the same plant, simply variable in form depending just where they're growing. It's really quite fascinating, I think. 
Many of the plants we think of as ordinary house plants are in fact juveniles of species that, in the rain forest, grow to towering giants in the tree canopy, with leaves two and more feet across. Pothos is one of these, as are many philodendrons, to name but two.

If I misused the term invalid, I apologize, but I wished to make it a bit easier for hobbyists to know that Water Sprite has at least two names and no matter which one it comes under it is very likely to be the one you are looking for.


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