The Crypts pages project started in summer 1997 and ended in autumn 2000. All
known species are described and a lot of pictures are available for identification. This
is especially important, for many species show a lot of variation. Not only influenced by
environmental factors such as light and soil, but also by genetic differences. Today,
these pages will be updated at less regular intervals.
For the novice Crypts lover these pages may be disappointing. Do not expect aquarium
pictures, most species are not appropriate for the aquarium and it is another specialism. It is also supposed that you already have some knowledge of Cryptocoryne.
Moreover it is assumed that you know how to grow them. And, not at least, you will never
find the rare species in a shop. You definitely need an (international) network.
At any rate, enjoy the spectacular inflorescence's (flowers) of these tiny aroids.
| Aquaria |
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The popularity of Cryptocoryne is no doubt based on the
keeping of tropical fish tanks. There are records that Crypts were cultivated in aquaria
in Europe in the 1910s. From the sixties imports of collected wild plants grew enormous
and the cultivation of 'new' Cryptocoryne was a hype for aquarists. |
Cryptocoryne beckettii Thw. from Sri Lanka.
Aquarel by J. Voerman Jr., 1925, Verkade |
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Taxonomy
The first Cryptocoryne was described already in 1779 as Arum spirale by Retzius. The genus appears from India to New Guinea with about 60 species. Today, Cryptocoryne is probably one of the best known genera of the Aroid family. Cryptocoryne has a
quite complicated taxonomy and there are of course different opinions. The taxonomy used
here is result of discussions in the forum with Niels Jacobsen and Josef Bogner.
Endangered plants
Many species are endangered for the simple reason that their habitats are
disappearing. One of the tasks of man is to draw attention to this worldwide problem. The
hobby of cultivating this genus will stimulate the interest in the biological and the
cultural treasures of that part of the world.
Today more and more popular aquarium plants are propagated in tissue culture and there is
less pressure on the habitats from collecting plants (though also fewer benefits for the
collectors). However, some species are till now very hard to grow. This site will
stimulate the knowledge and the exchange of information on crypts.
Conservation Action Plan 2023-2033(document services)
The action plan is presented in the following sections:
- An introduction to the Conservation Action Plan.
- A summary characterisation of the genus Cryptocoryne.
- An overview of the conservation status of all known taxa, based on Red List assessments.
- Analysis of the threats affecting Cryptocoryne populations.
- A strategic plan presenting an overview of potential action at a range of levels down to individual regions and taxa.
- A list of references used in putting together the Action Plan.
- An appendix presenting the threat status assigned to each taxon assessed.
- Detailed information on each taxon assessed, including the information used to prepare the Red List assessment. Some information in this section differs from that in the main body of the report, as new information became available and new taxa were described during preparation of the report.
Geographical delimitation
In a few cases I had to join political states into a group because there are only a
few species or when the territory is relatively small and have nearly the same flora.
Sometimes this feels bad, I am sorry for that.
Distribution maps
The distribution maps for the species do not pretend to be complete. Besides, I use
an optimistic view. If there are reasonable arguments for a locality, I include it. Not
only data from herbaria are used, also data from (sometimes obscure) literature and from
personal communication are used. Probably not all information is correct, it may be that
the locality is documented 100 years ago and is now converted into a highway, a golf
coarse or an oil palm plantation. DO NOT plan a trip based on this information!
Image coding
All images of plants are coded with a 4 position code, connected with an
underscore. The first part is the species code, a three letter abbreviation. The second
part is the collector's code. The third part is a greenhouse code. The fourth part is an
arbitrarily code, it may be a date, film number or whatever. Unknown or irrelevant data are represented with a letter 'x'.
This way of coding has some imperfections and is essentially for private use, but you may
understand it. See more details.
Acknowledgements
A lot of people contributed in giving permission to use their pictures:
Arends (NL), Armstrong (AUS), Averyanov (RU), Babics (D), Barr (USA), Basia (RU), Bednii (MOL), te Beest (NL), Bem (CZ), ten Berge (B), Bogner
(D), Blass †(D), Boorsma (NL), Boyce (UK), van Bruggen †(NL), Budianto (ID),
Chan (SG), Christensen (DK), Driessen (NL), Eichner (D), Ehrenberg †(D), Ganapathy (MY), Gasser †(USA),
Gerlach (D), Hanrieder (D), Hoeck (D), Hansen (AUS), Hildebrand (D), Idei (JP), Ipor (MY), Jacobsen
(DK), Johnsen (DK), Junge (D), Kaburagi (JP), Kasselmann (D), Kawashima (JP), Kettner
(CH), Kovalev (RU), Krombholz (USA), Krøjgaard (DK), Liedl (D), Lo (MY), Maesen
(B), Maxwell †(TH), Möhlmann †(D), Murata (JP), Ng (SG), Nicolson (USA), van den Nieuwenhuizen (NL), Oberjatzas (D),
Ørgaard (DK), Pao (MY), Prasartkul (TH), Prieto (PH), Raj (IN), Reitel (D), Roggekamp (NL), Sajeev (IN), Sando (TH). Sasaki (JP),
Seccombe (AUS), Schulze †(D), Schöpfel †(D), Schwott (CZ), Sigezo (JP), Sim (MY), Siow (MY), Sivadasan (IN), Shelejkovsky (RU),
Snijders (NL), Stam (NL), Ueno (JP), Vlasblom †(NL), Vogt (D), Wang (SG), Waser (CH), van Wijngaarden† (NL), Windelov (DK), de Wilde (NL), de Wit †(NL), Wongso (ID), Yadav (IN), Yamaoka (JP),
TianZi Biodiversity Centre (CN), Zewald †(NL), Zhou (CN) .
Technical data
Good memories of the beautiful, now vintage SLR cameras as the Exacta Varex IIb and the Praktica Nova, both with a Pancolar 1:2, 50
mm and of the Olympus OM1/2 with Auto-Macro 1:3.5, 50 mm on Kodachrome 64 /
Fujichrome 100 film. In most cases with electronic flashlight and diaphragm 16. Some slides were scanned Kodak PhotoCD and adapted with PhotoShop. Later with a
Nikon Coolscan III for digitising colour slides. From 2003 on I use a couple of Nikon Coolpix
5000 for imaging. Many (very) close-up pictures of the details of the kettle were made with a reversed Olympus lens in front of it. Lighting with a couple of household tungsten bulbs and a few screens. The website is engineered with Dreamwaver CS3 using nested templates.
Copyright
The pictures and texts are copyrighted. You can use them for
yourself, for study, in hobby clubs etc. Do not distribute any part, especially not via the
web. They are not free for commercial use, if you like to do so, contact me.
Feel free to comment, ask questions and give feedback.
Updated Januari 2018
Jan D. Bastmeijer
mail to: crypts (at) xs4all (dot) nl |
