Cryptocoryne keei N.Jacobsen

Probably, plants of the species Cryptocoryne keei were held as Cryptocoryne bullosa for many years in Europe. They were not recognized. In 1968, Vladimir Sadilek from Tsjechia wrote an article about C. bullosa (Sadilek, 1968). He mentions that newly imported plants were found at a 'secret' locality of the Ong family in Sarawak and actually he describes C. keei. Jacobsen states that Henry Ong from Kuching, the famous collector and tradesman in Sarawak from the 60s to the 80s, found this plant near Bau in Western Sarawak around 1978 (Jacobsen 1985). There were no inflorescences known of this species, but nobody worried about that. Till it was discovered that the chromosomal number of the plant proved to be 2n=20 in contrast to the expected value of 2n=34 for C. bullosa (Arends et al. 1982). When Ong collected a spathe after this discovery, it turned out to be a new species! The species is named in honor to Henry Ong Kee Chuan.

^{Click on the picture to get the full image (ca 50 k)}

Emersed cultivated plant of C. keei. Note the brown marmorated young leave. photo Möhlmann	Hans Ehrenberg from Berlin flowered C. keei in culture. A length section of the kettle. Note the rather short spadix. photo Ehrenberg	Another by Ehrenberg cultivated plants. Note the small size of the spathe, ca 5 cm and the short leaves. photo Kasselmann	The limb has small red dots in the throat. The surface is quite rough and the top is like a twisted tail. photo Kasselmann
Imported specimen of C. keei. Note very dark green leaves. The lower part of the petioles are white, apparently they were deeply buried in the soil. Collection Jacobsen 78-73. photo Bastmeijer	Submersed grown, C. keei can develop bright brown spots on the leave: the vertical leave at left. Note that this is true color of the leave and not dirt. The leave at right is C. hudoroi. photo Kettner	The same scene. The leave at the left background is almost brown. It belongs to C. keei.This is only known from cultivated plants. Leave blade about 10 cm long. photo Kettner	Isotype of C. keei collected by Henry Ong, in the Wageningen Herbarium in the Netherlands. Herbarium Wageningen
Yuji Sasaki collected C. keei in December 1999. Plants flowered soon in Japan. Length of the spathe ca 8 cm. photo Sasaki	Limb of the spathe of C. keei. Note the tail and the fine red dots in the throat. photo Sasaki	A length section of the kettle. The color of the kettle wall is white in fact. photo Sasaki	The female flowers with rather long styles. As usual they bent down a few days after opening. photo Sasaki
A bank with submersed growing C. keei near Bau (Sarawak).  Note that some specimen grow emersed. photo Sasaki	Detail of the riverbank with C. keei. The plants are fully green. photo Sasaki	Jacobsen (1982) gives a drawing of C. keei. Apparently the limb is not 'tailed'. drawing Marianne Krøjgaard	Distribution of C. keei West of Kuching (Sarawak).

Cryptocoryne keei was and is a surprise. In contrast to C. bullosa, this plant is rather easy to cultivate, even in a normal fish tank. To see the inflorescense, one has to cultivate the plants emersed. But it proved up to now extremely difficult. Hans Ehrenberg from Berlin succeeded after many years, cultivating the plant emersed.
Yuji Sasaki from Japan collected C. keei in December 1999. They were   flowering abundantly.
See also the pages on C. bullosa and C. hudoroi.

Jan D. Bastmeijer, 1 February 2000

Literature