Mediterranean Quillwort

Isoetes longissima

A rosette of stiff rush-like leaves from Mediterranean waters. Quillworts are ancient plants — the nearest living relatives of the giant club mosses of the coal forests — and they reproduce by spores, not seed.

Light: medium–high
Difficulty: easy
Temperature: 5 – 28 °C (41 – 82 °F)

Plant type: rosette
Growth rate: slow
Tolerates light: medium – high
Carbonate hardness: 0 – 15 °dKH
Placement: background, midground +2 background, midground, nano tank, specimen
Propagation: spores, division +1 spores, division, daughter plants
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Narrow cylindrical leaves growing in a rosette from a short tuber-like stem. Nothing about it looks like a flowering plant, because it is not one.

Keeping

Undemanding but slow: medium to strong light, a nutritious substrate, cool to moderate water. Its pace is the main thing to plan around — a plant changes little from month to month, and it is rarely offered in shops.

Placement

The middle of the tank or as a small specimen, including nano layouts.

Propagation

By spores, and by dividing an established plant.

Water conditions match

The water suits 1008 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 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 Zebra Mbuna

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 Spined Loach 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

Will uproot it

These species dig through the substrate and pull rooted plants out.

Marble Loach Peacock Eel Forktail Loach Guntea Loach Long-nosed Loach Horseface Loach Pearlscale Black Moor Goldfish Shubunkin Painted Pleco Featherfin Synodontis Reddish Mystus Catfish Blue Acara Aulonocara maylandi Aulonocara multicolor Aulonocara Orchid Geophagus altifrons Geophagus winemilleri Pearlscale Cichlid Pearl Cichlid Redbelly Cichlid Red-spotted Cichlid Chuco godmanni Haplochromis philander Red Chromide Jack Dempsey cichlid

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: Isoetes velata var. sicula, Isoetes Velata Var. Sicula

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Isoetes boryana lereschei, Isoetes setacea peyrremondii, Isoetes teguliana, Isoetes tenuissima capillifolia, Isoetes tenuissima chaboissaii, Isoetes tenuissima latifolia, Isoetes tenuissima longifolia, Isoetes variabilis, Isoetes velata velata, Isoetes velata intermedia
Family: Isoetaceae
Conservation status: EN

Mediterranean Quillwort

Tank conditions

Care and keeping