Narrow-leaf Clover

Marsilea angustifolia

A clover fern with narrower leaflets and thicker stems than its relatives, so the mat it makes is noticeably denser. New leaves come up orange-brown and turn green with age.

Light: medium–high
Temperature: 20 – 28 °C (68 – 82 °F)

Leaf colour: green, bronze or brown
Plant type: rhizome
Tolerates light: medium – high
Carbonate hardness: 2 – 12 °dKH
Placement: carpet
Propagation: runners, rhizome division +2 runners, rhizome division, division, daughter plants
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Four narrow leaflets on a thin stalk, growing from a creeping stem. Fresh leaves are deep orange to brown and shift to bright green, so an established patch shows both colours at once.

Keeping

Fairly easy for a carpet plant and adaptable, though it wants good light reaching the bottom — that is what keeps it low and dense. It spreads at its own pace and asks for little trimming.

Placement

The front of the tank, filling gaps around hardscape or mixed into a lawn of fine grasses for a change of texture.

Propagation

By runners: pieces of the creeping stem with leaves and roots can be separated and replanted.

Water conditions match

The water suits 1005 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 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.

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Zaluzianskia angustifolia
Marsilea angustifolia: R. Br.
Family: Marsileaceae
Range regions: Northern Territory, Western Australia