Aquatic (&/or edible) geophytes

Lee Poulsen wpoulsen@pacbell.net
Fri, 27 Jan 2006 17:05:19 PST
Conroe Joe's post got me remembering back when I had a fairly large 
freshwater aquarium and I tried to plant it with a lush landscape of 
underwater plants, that there were some I liked that were bulbs (or 
corm or something) which I planted and they grew some nicely leaved 
plants. I think a few times I even got lucky and they sent a small 
scape to the top of the aquarium where they opened a small flower just 
above the surface of the water. I think they were called Aponogeton of 
some species or another. Joe's post made me wonder if we should try to 
add photos of the various underwater geophytes to the wiki, or discuss 
them on the list, since I think they are On Topic. I know it has 
already been agreed that water lilies and lotuses are full-fledged 
geophytes. I also wondered how many geophytes are solely or mainly 
underwater plants and what the genera and species are.

A little while later, as I was looking through the vegetable seed 
catalogs trying to decide what to grow this year, I realized that there 
were a number of food geophytes (like potatoes and Jerusalem 
artichokes, as well as some of the Andean tubers and rhizomes) that 
would also be On Topic. Again I wondered if photos of these ought not 
be added to the wiki as well. As far as discussion, I know that some 
have been mentioned from time to time like sweet potatoes and bananas. 
It seems that some bananas which form corms are grown purely for 
ornamentation, for their flowers and/or their foliage. So they would 
definitely seem fair game for the wiki. Does anyone have full listing 
of all edible/food geophyte genera and species as well as the aquatic 
ones?

And let's not leave out those that belong in both these camps like 
water chestnuts...
;-)

Just trying to get a little affirmative action for the 
not-as-often-thought-of geophytes,
--Lee Poulsen
Pasadena, California, USDA Zone 10a


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