Banana plant: the curious tuber plant

Where it comes from

Nymphoides aquatica is native to the still, slow waters of the south-eastern United States. Its common name comes from the cluster of fat, curved, banana-like storage tubers it grows at its base — one of the odder sights in the hobby.

What to expect

From the tubers rise slender stalks topped with rounded, heart-shaped leaves. In a well-lit tank it may also send a stalk to the surface and produce a floating pad and even a small white flower. It stays compact enough for the midground or a novelty foreground feature.

How to keep it

It is genuinely easy and needs no CO2. The one rule that trips people up: do not bury the banana tubers. Rest them on top of the substrate — the plant grows its own fine roots down and uses the tubers as an energy store. Buried, they tend to rot.

Parameter	Value
Lighting	Medium to high
CO2	Not required
Temperature	20–28 °C
pH	6.0–7.5
Hardness	Soft to hard
Fertiliser	Light feeding; the tubers store energy
Substrate	Any; rest tubers on top
Growth rate	Slow to moderate
Placement	Midground, Foreground
Difficulty	Easy

Where it works and how to spread it

Sit it in the midground where its curious base can be seen. It propagates when a leaf develops a plantlet, or by separating tubers from an established clump. If it sends leaves to the surface, you can trim them to keep growth submersed and compact.

What goes wrong

Rotting tubers are the main failure, and nearly always the result of burying them — leave them exposed. Melting leaves after purchase are usually the switch from emersed to submersed growth (see plant melt), and new leaves follow.

More plants in this series

• Tiger lotus (Nymphaea zenkeri) — the other tuber plant with surface pads
• Cryptocoryne wendtii — the easy low-light rosette
• Dwarf sagittaria (Sagittaria subulata) — the easy grassy foreground
• Aponogeton crispus — the easy crinkled bulb plant