Aponogeton crispus

Aponogeton crispus Thunb., Nov. Gen. Pl. 73 1784. (Syn: Aponogeton echinatus Roxb.; Spathium crispum (Thunb.) Voigt; Spathium echinatum (Roxb.) Voigt);

Bangladesh, S. India, Sri Lanka as per WCSP;

ANMAY03/04 Aponogeton crispus Thunb. : 16 posts by 6 authors. Attachments (8)

Family: Aponogetonaceae
Date: 29th April 2015
Place: Tumkur-Hassan district, Karnataka
Habit: Herb
Habitat: Aquatic/Pond

I have seen it in West Bengal under cultivation as an ornamental.

I think it’s Aponogeton natans

Pl. see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aponogeton_crispus

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/plantfinder/details.php?id=87

How are the two species differentiated?

The fruits of the plant I found led me to Aponogeton echinatus whose current name is Aponogeton crispus. Please take a look at the last photo with the fruits, sir.

Also, Flora of Hassan district reports one species- Aponogeton echinatus.

See the leaves in the links provided by me, you will know the difference.

I don’t know about the seeds.

Perhaps Roxburgh would know (his) species better than any other sources. Attached here entries from FBI, FI, BP, BoBO.

Two kew heb –

Thank you

While doing ecology practicals nearly 48 years back in Kashmir, and luckily I still remember, we had a few clear cut species of Potamogeton: P. pectinatus with finely dissected leaves, P. lucens with semitransparent leaves, P. natans with thick flat shining floating leaves and P. crispus with wavy (crisped) leaves. We did not know about Aponogeton as it is a basically an ornamental plant of warmer climates, mostly used in aquarium. Yet it has two similar species (which differ besides technical characters, by the absence of above mud stems clearly seen in Potamogeton). with similar names Aponogeton natans (with broad flat leaves) and A. crispus Thunb (syn: A. echinatus Roxb.). To me both Potamogeton crispus and Aponogeton crispus are out of contension. Whereas presence or absence of above mud stems is important for diagnosis, but the colour of inflorescence easily places it as Aponogeton natans. I hope I am not wrong.

Thanks Sir for taking care. … point is that fruits here are echinate, so it should be A. echinatum Roxb. Now, if the current accepted name of A. echinatum Roxb. is A. natans then it is the same.

The problem is old lit consider all three different taxa.

Another problem is nowhere I could find that A. natans can have echinate fruit/capsule.

Here is a paper from Pakistan http://www.pakbs.org/pjbot/PDFs/40(1)/PJB40(1)001.pdf

And here is the protologue – http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/16802027#page/16/mode/1up

Current accpted name of A. echinatum Roxb. is A. crispus and not A. natans. Please note that Engler’s revision puts it under unconfirmed/dubius species. Even FBI mentions mix up in Roxburgh’s plates.

So where do we stand Sir?

Roxburgh’s A. echinatus(m) is dubius/uncofirmed, meaning Roxburgh may not be correct at all! Thereby Wight and Prain are also wrong!

TPL thinks A. echinatus Roxb. is synonymous with, that too with three stars, with A. crispus Thunb.

You, based on inflorescence colour and …, based on leaf, think the species submitted by … is A. natans (L.) Engl. & K. Krause.

So be it….. thank you very much.

I can clearly see the fruits of this species, those fruits can’t be called smooth and Roxburgh was correct. I said Roxburgh would know his species better than any other source.

I copy here a few words from “Revision of the Genus Aponogeton / H. W. E. VAN BRUGGEN” :-

ovules 4-8; tepals white, pink, or violet … fruit with very long (1mm) terminal beak = natans
ovules 2 (seldom1); ………………. fruit smooth = crispus
do …………………………. fruit mostly with irregular excrescences, seldom smooth…. = echinatus

The differences between the 2nd and 3rd above lie in tuber, leaf, inflorescence, tepal, filament, fruit and plumule.

So, you can boldly go ahead with the ID A. echinatus Roxb. with your species, no matter eFI admit or not.

Perhaps this should help in reaching conclusion keeping in mind conclusions by me and …

http://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.specimen.k000950197

Unfortunately the page is not visible now, Sir, not only that page I have also seen the edit page (of the link you have provided) at http://plants.jstor.org/stable/history/10.5555/al.ap.specimen.k000950202

Both the pages carried names of authors updated the related herbarium, and the top most author was Bruggen.

Here it is again Sir

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