that brown thing is a corn that grows as the plant matures. If your plant starts to lose a lot of leaves as if it is dieing just cut the corn off without damaging the roots or separating the entire plant. It will grow back.
I would just like to give an update for the small plant that was growing off the long stem out of water. 2 weeks ago I cut it off the stem and planted it in the same outside tank. It only has 1" - 1.5" of gravel. The plant didn't have any root.
Today I transfered it to my main tank. It has developed some nice roots and looks generally healthy. I don't have CO2 or Fert. I only have 1W/gal. Lets see how it does.
The new plantlet might die back a bit, so that it can get it's water leaves. Just a heads up in case it happens. Looks healthy thus far though! :grinyes:
As I said, it has been in water for 2 weeks. It only had 3 leaves then. All the other leaves grew in water. The new leaves are more curly than the original 3 leaves.