# Propagating Cyperus Helferi



## kotoeloncat (Apr 12, 2006)

Cyperus Helferi, seems to be one of those plants that are quite common seen from online sellers but quite rare in the SnS.

I think I found a way to propagate this plant really quickly, AFTER you already have a nice healthy mother plant. As far as I know, I only find information that says you have to split the rosette or wait for a daughter plant to form at the base of the mother plant (correct me if I am wrong).

Ok, so now you have a health mother plant. 

You will find these from time to time, Mine grows these all the time I am not sure how long it takes to form but I always find at least one or 2 at every weekly water change. I am no botanist so I am not sure what to call this. But it looked somewhat like a flower growing from a very thick rigid stem.









What I do is I cut these down at the stems where they form, not the tiny stems that makes up the "flower" but the thick rigid stem that connects this to the mother plant. I would leave about 1 inch of that stem on this flower and throw away the longer part of the stem.

Here is what it looks like out of the water









Then you plant this "flower" in the substrate, give it a week or so and it will start rooting like you see here. Each of these little crown (black box) will form a new plant. 

















The benefit of doing this compared to splitting or finding a daughter plant is more plants with less effort. And also keeps you from digging and uprooting the mother plant to propagate it. But of course the catch is you have to already have a healthy colony to start with


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## CL (Mar 13, 2008)

That's really cool.  Did you just randomly decide to plant the 'flower' to see if it would grow?


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## kotoeloncat (Apr 12, 2006)

clwatkins10 said:


> That's really cool.  Did you just randomly decide to plant the 'flower' to see if it would grow?


coincidence really. I gave a good friend of mine 2 of these "flower" for him to test see if they grew and I took 2 of these for my 140.

to my surprise he said it grew roots and new leaves, and when I checked mine he was right. So I figured I would share, maybe this way we can get more people to use this nice plant in their scape


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## PJM (Nov 6, 2013)

My cyperus is melting a lot in my tank, is it possible that I'm putting to much ferts? 
12 gallon long
CO2 2 bps
good flow
PPS-PRO liquid fert 1ml daily
ecocomplete substrate cap with black flourite 
Satellite led + 6500k 8hrs


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