Butomopsis

Butomopsis latifolia

General information: Grows in shallow water after wet season, plant becomes emergent and flowers as billabong dries. Trials as an aquarium plant started about 2005 and are still underway.

Cultivation notes: Grown from seed each year and send up long slender aquatic leaves. As the plant matures it sends up oval shaped leaves to the surface. Generally light green in colour but occasionally the leaf colour changes to deep purple in emergent form.

Distribution: Old world tropics from Africa across to Australia. In NT form cultured are from a billabong near the Daly River.

Selling details: Price quoted is for one plant bare rooted.

Reference: Cowie, Short, Osterkamp-Madsen (2000) "Floodplain Flora, a flora of the coastal floodplains of the Northern Territory, Australia"