A. nana "petite" as per AFM's Article

beviking

beviking

Senior Member, Sophomoric Attitude
Feb 16, 2002
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In the April '06 of AFM, an article by Robert Paul Hudson (names sounds familiar...) writes about A. nana "petite" that "As the plant matures and is propagated, new leaf growth may be normal nana size as the mutation is lost."

My question is then, how is the plant classified as "petite"? Simply by the size of the leaf? I have several normal nana with newer growth showing "petite" leaves. If I cut the rhizome to leave only "petite" leaves, then do I have a "petite" nana? I would never do such a thing, but someone could then advertise this as "petite" nana, a person buys it, then it grows regular leaves. Just another point for those looking to buy plants to do research and be sure of what they are getting I guess.
Are other cultivars also as whimsical to keeping their cultivar form?

It certainly is a well written article :)
 
I have been growing and trimming/pruning this plant for a couple of years and have not had any of the leaves change or grow in size yet.
They are still the size of the leaves on the original plants I bought which is approx. 1/10 the size of an Anubia Barteri Nana. Very tiny.
I don't know whether this helps or not, but it's my experience with the plant.

Len
 
Prior to places like Aquabotanic (where I got my A. nana 'petite') handling the plant, there was some traffic in what I call "bonsai" A. nana, tiny in relation to the normal plant, but planted and taken care of, they would become normal A. nana. I confess that I got taken on one such deal. But so far as I can tell, A.b. nana 'petite' from RPH is a distinct plant, really not very similar in growth form to "normal" A.b.nana, or to "bonsai" A.b.nana. Mine is quite nice, tiny in comparison to the normal plant when grown side-by-side.

Now if I could just stop the Amano shrimp from uprooting fresh divisions, I could spread it out as a carpet a lot faster.
 
The reason I wrote that is because I have read reports from people that the plant can revert back to the original form before the mutation, and Oriental Aquarium who developed this mutation states this as well. Like Len, it has never happened to me either. I have seen it happen in the variegated forms. The leaves may start out with white markings but eventually become solid green.

The "Pigmy" Anubias is not the true petite nana. Petite nana only comes from nurseries who are able to develop the strain thru tissue culture or whatever the process is. There are exporters in Africa that collect plants from the wild and ship them out to people in the USA. This is where all the really low priced Anubias come from. They are all wild collected plants. "Pigmy" is one of them, and is really just plain old normal nana.
 
I would also say that there seems to be a true difference. I more or less Bonsai'd some of my Nana by accitdent and have had some that was very small for quite a while but eventually it did grow back to larger size. I also have some "petite" nana from what I consider to be an extremely reliable source and it does not appear to be the same plant or grow in a similar fashion to my other nana. The petite grew slightly larger (As big as 3/4") leaves just after propogation, but quickly settled down to tiny (1/4") leaves, and the only large leaves are those that grew immediatly after I recieved it. Growth is slow but steady and in the few short months I've had it I probably have 15-20 new leaves and a couple of inches of new Rhisome. Obviously it could still grow out larger at some point, but based on the nana in the same tank it does not seem to be the same plant at all.
Dave
 
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