Hydrocotyle leucocephala

I received Hydrocotyle leucocephala from aquariumplants.com yesterday. So it took a week to arrive. Not bad.

The three bunches were all much larger than I expected. That's perfectly fine. They're healthy. I introduced the plants to a 20 gallon tank from which I had recently uprooted three large Amazon swords.

The picture in this article shows some of the new Hydrocotyle leucocephala planted in my 35 gallon tall aquarium. It makes a nice centerpiece as it stands almost 1.5 feet tall. Click picture for a larger view.

Roots appear on every node. Perhaps this plants prefers to creep along the bottom, but there isn't enough room for this at the moment.

The leucocephala is different in that the leaf stems are not as long as those found on pictures of Hydrocotyle verticillata. If you look closely at the leaf structure in the photograph, notice that the leaf stem between the leaf and the branch is very short. Compare this to verticillata.

In every photo, verticillata grows similar leaf structures but on longer stems. The branches are usually covered in the substrate, leaving interesting umbrella-like shapes floating on to of small stems. I'm not going to get that effect with leaucocephala at the moment, but I can't wait to see how the plant develops in my aquariums.