# Selaginella Kraussiana- is this plant ok?



## girlwithafrogtattoo (Mar 4, 2009)

Got this in the mail today, pieces all over the pots are falling out and it's brown as can be seen in the pic. Should this bounce back? I've never had this plant before, so I'm not sure what to expect. I got 4 pots.


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## Frogtofall (Feb 16, 2006)

Brown is dead but green is okay. I might just take cuttings from the green stuff and spread them around the viv floor. Keep them slightly damp until they root and they should take off.


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## girlwithafrogtattoo (Mar 4, 2009)

ok, so I can grow it from the healthy green pieces. Does this grow fairly fast? I ordered so much because I wanted to use them in a Christmas gift


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## littlefrog (Sep 13, 2005)

Lightning fast once it establishes. I've found it can take a little time to adjust. Give it high humidity and moderate light. Lower light is ok, but you'll lose some of the color if it is the aurea (gold) or 'gold tips' variety.

Rob


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## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

i prefer the unicata since its seems more humidity tolerant than the kraussiana. all of the s.kraussiana that ive tried has melted in the humidity. 

james


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## girlwithafrogtattoo (Mar 4, 2009)

littlefrog said:


> Lightning fast once it establishes. I've found it can take a little time to adjust. Give it high humidity and moderate light. Lower light is ok, but you'll lose some of the color if it is the aurea (gold) or 'gold tips' variety.
> 
> Rob



Thanks for the input Rob! It's just labeled plain old Selaginella Kraussiana. 



james67 said:


> i prefer the unicata since its seems more humidity tolerant than the kraussiana. all of the s.kraussiana that ive tried has melted in the humidity.
> 
> james


I hope that doesn't happen to this!


I emailed the seller I purchased it from and was told that it is fine to place the whole plant in the viv, and that it will green up for me. They said they don't use fertilizer, so that's why it grows the way it does.
I've taken some of the green tips off the pieces (or rather chunks) that fell out, and put them in the viv and in pots to grow out. Rather dissapointed with this order  But hopefully the plants will start to take off. Some of the stuff was so dry it was crumbling under my fingers


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## Frogtofall (Feb 16, 2006)

dreamcatcer98 said:


> Thanks for the input Rob! It's just labeled plain old Selaginella Kraussiana.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I hope it wasn't a sponsor!


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## littlefrog (Sep 13, 2005)

james67 said:


> i prefer the unicata since its seems more humidity tolerant than the kraussiana. all of the s.kraussiana that ive tried has melted in the humidity.
> 
> james


Hmmm... I've found that the 'original' growth often dies back a bit when you change conditions (for example, from greenhouse to tank), but usually they take off pretty well on new growth even under my conditions. I have very high humidity and it seems to do pretty well. The key might be to start with small plants that are in full growth, rather than the beautiful ones you see that are crowded in the pot - they take a while to start growing again.

Peacock spikemoss (Sel. uncinata) is pretty neat though. I find it gets kind of 'leggy', and every once in a while I whack it back to try to make it look fuller.


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## girlwithafrogtattoo (Mar 4, 2009)

Frogtofall said:


> I hope it wasn't a sponsor!


I know better than to awnser that one! I don't want to be a pain, and don't like causing problems so I guess I'll end up letting it go. It was almost $22 for the 4 pots shipped, which is a bit of money for us at the moment. Does what he said not make sense? Like I said, I've never had this plant before, so I'm going off of what I'm told. I did shoot them another email letting them know that it was crumbly and when I unwrapped the newspaper clumps were coming loose. No response to that yet.


I appreciate the comments and advice, DB has been great for getting info!

Edit: was told they don't always ship well, and to plant them and they'd be fine.


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## JimO (May 14, 2010)

I started with a couple of small cuttings of the Goldtips variety of _Selaginella kraussiana_ and have had it there for nearly 3 yrs along with my first breeding pair of azureus. As others have stated, unless James' experience with _Kraussiana_ is the norm, it will take a few months to get completely estabished and will then send vine-like new growth that will climb the background and other vertical spaces in addition to covering the substrate where lighting and water are favorable. I have to trim my a couple times a month.

Attached is a photo of a portion of my tank background showing the _Selaginella_ fighting it ou with my oak leafed creeping fig (_Ficus pumilio_, I believe). I've posted the second photo a couple of times on other threads, but, I wanted you to see the large Selaginella-covered spots in the center near the front and to the right-center of the viv at the lower portion of the fern panel. My water level is a couple of inches below the roots.

















So, if you're patient, the $22 is not likely wasted. I'd recommend putting small clumps in various locations with different lighting and differences in substrate wetness. The rest of it you could place in a relatively simple 10-gal plant grow-out tank, with driftwood, cork bark and flat rocks covering the bottom. Then fill the tank with water to a point that it doesn't reach within 1 in. of the roots. Put a lid on it that will maintain humidity and put at least one 26-watt, 6500k daylight corkscrew cfl bulb on top with about a 12-hr lighting cycle. You could use an aluminum dome fixture that costs about $5 or less at Home Depot. I had to go to Wal-Mart to find the GE brand of screw in, corkscrewed compact fluorescent (CFL) bulb, A pack of two costs about $7. So, you'd be spending about $8 per lighted fixture and you could use the fixtures as supplemental light on your vivs when you are not using the plant tank. 

If you take a shot at propagating specimens for sale, mist the plant grow-out tank daily. Leave a spot on the tank bottom bare, so you can occasionally remove excess water. The _Selaginella_ should grow like crazy under such conditions, and you could recoup the money you spent, on the plants and equipment to grow them, by selling your surplus.

Sorry for the long post.

Good luck,

Jim


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## girlwithafrogtattoo (Mar 4, 2009)

Thank you very much Jim! That was very helpful for sure!
I'm trying to empty out my current spare tank so I don't have room for propagating it much right now. I will definately keep that in mind though. It gives me hope that I'll have nice looking plants like yours though 
I need to at least grow enough nice green stuff by Christmas for a gift I was working on.


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## MeiKVR6 (Sep 16, 2008)

Selaginella can be hard to ship - but that wouldn't cause it to go brown in the middle.  Like Antone said - the brown stuff likely won't come back so it's good that you pulled it out. Keep it moist and under decent lighting and it should bounce back just fine. Kraussiana is an awesome viv plant. I just cleaned out my supplier to hopefully hold me over for the winter.  Good luck!


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## girlwithafrogtattoo (Mar 4, 2009)

MeiKVR6 said:


> Selaginella can be hard to ship - but that wouldn't cause it to go brown in the middle.  Like Antone said - the brown stuff likely won't come back so it's good that you pulled it out. Keep it moist and under decent lighting and it should bounce back just fine. Kraussiana is an awesome viv plant. I just cleaned out my supplier to hopefully hold me over for the winter.  Good luck!



TY  I hope your stuff comes in better looking than mine did! I ordered 4 thinking that I'd have a bunch extra from my project LOL I only needed enough to fill in a 1.5 gal mini viv that I wanted to look Christmassy.


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## girlwithafrogtattoo (Mar 4, 2009)

Figured I'd update- I put 2 plants in vivs, and both totally died. I kept the green piece off the other 2 plants, and put them on fresh soil under good light and they seem to be growing pretty well.
I did contact the seller again, and was told that I will get a refund for the plants. So at least he's resolved the issue.


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## JimO (May 14, 2010)

That's great to hear.


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