Pinnate Hygrophila

Hygrophila pinnatifida

An unusual plant with deeply cut brown-olive leaves and a wine-red underside. It is the rare stem plant that grows tied to wood or stone as well as in the substrate.

Light: medium
Difficulty: medium
Height: 5 – 40 cm (2 – 16 in)
Temperature: 18 – 28 °C (64 – 82 °F)

Leaf colour: green, red +1 green, red, bronze or brown
Plant type: stem plant
Growth rate: medium
CO₂ demand: medium
Tolerates light: medium – high
pH: 5 – 8
Carbonate hardness: 2 – 12 °dKH
General hardness: 0 – 30 °dGH
Placement: on stone and wood +3 on stone and wood, semi-emersed, midground, foreground
Propagation: runners +4 runners, plantlets on leaves, cuttings, division, daughter plants
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Leaves cut into lobes like an oak leaf, patched brown and olive above and burgundy underneath. Height ranges from 5 to 40 cm: pinched back it stays low and spreads sideways, left alone it grows upwards.

Keeping

Moderate demands. It needs decent light for the colour and answers well to carbon dioxide; in dim light it turns plain green and stretches. Old leaves sometimes develop small holes — that is a shortage of fertiliser, not a disease.

Placement

The middle of the tank, either planted or tied to wood or stone — the side shoots grip a surface by themselves. A group of a few plants against a plain background shows the leaf colour best.

Propagation

It sends out horizontal side shoots; cut one off with its roots and tie or plant it elsewhere. Pinching the tops makes more of these shoots.

Water conditions match

The water suits 1025 of 1249 species in the catalogue — these are the ones people look up most often.

Swordtail Guppies Cobra Guppy Blood Red Molly Butterflyfish Red Zebra Cichlid Julii Corydoras Featherfin Synodontis Red-finned Parotocinclus Gastromyzon monticola Egg-shaped Goldfish Flame Tetra Gardner's Killifish African Tetra Kenyi Cichlid Cuckoo Catfish Golden Swordtail Hypsolebias picturatus Common Zacco Labeo Bicolor Gambusia Flying barb Gastromyzon scitulus Albino Zebra Danio Geophagus Brokopondo

Will eat this plant

These species damage plants, especially when their diet is short of vegetable food.

Bengal Loach Zebra Loach Burmese Border Loach Emperor Botia Marbled Headstander Pellegrin's Leporinus Leporinus striatus False Black Tetra Common Metynnis Mylossoma duriventre Red Whiptail Catfish Molly sphenops Balloon Molly Lyretail Molly Marble Molly Hi-Fin Platy Hawaii Platy Blue Platy Pintail Platy Black Platy Chocolate Molly Moonlight Gourami Melanotaenia parva

Matching water does not mean the fish will leave the plant alone.

The same plant with a different look: light, water and care are shared with the species.

Other varieties: Hygrophila pinnatifida & moss, Hygrophila pinnatifida Uttara Kannada, Hygrophila Pinnatifida 'UK'

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Nomaphila pinnatifida Dalzell, Cardanthera pinnatifida (Dalzell) Benth. ex C.B.Clarke ., Adenosma pinnatifida, Cardanthera pinnatifida, Hygrophila pinnatifida, Nomaphila pinnatifida, Synnema pinnatifidum
Hygrophila pinnatifida: (Dalzell) Sreem.
Family: Acanthaceae
Range regions: India
Conservation status: LC

Pinnate Hygrophila

Tank conditions

Care and keeping