Paludarium plants

Okay,

I've been reading about paludariums, and checking out plant lists, but a little concerned as to which are most likely to succeed.

Originally, I thought any riperian/bog/pond plant would be okay with being in a plaudarium. Well, I stuck a miniature cattail in my aquarium and it didn't do well. I'm not sure why. Could have been not enough light, could have been the humidity was too high. I've been thinking on that last one because at the time I had the lid still on to keep the heat in. I moved the cattail out to the pond and it hasn't died, but it hasn't perked up much either.

Anyway, this is a long term think about it for months, then get busy and get'er done project. I'm in the thinking stage.

Eventually, when I get all the materials together, I want to built a platform that supports a miniature rock waterfall with miniature plants that want to stay miniature. The platform would be above the water line inside the tank, so the humidity would be high.

I might end up with just mosses like cryptomarium, which I love all to pieces, but it would be nice to have a few ferns.

Any suggestions?

I'm no expert on this, but I can tell you that a limiting factor will be lighting. Most herbaceous marsh/ pond plants need a lot more light than it is practical to provide in an indoor setting; there's a reason most houseplants are native to shady rainforest environments.

So: mosses, liverworts, selaginellas, and ferns are usually happy in lower light settings. Grassy-leaved monocots, including true grasses, sedges, rushes, cattails, reeds, and so on generally fare poorly in low light. Broad-leaved dicots fall in the middle; some thrive in the shade, others do not.

I don't know much about your local flora, but I know you have some very humid forests there. I bet any of the epiphytic or ground-growing forest plants would do reasonably well in a paludarium. If you aren't sticking to local natives, you have a number of options. Common aquarium plants such as bacopa, water penny, riccia, and Java fern actually do very well in moist terrestrial situations. Black Jungle has a number of small tropicals suitable for paludariums.

Hopefully Laura or some of the other more knowledgeable plant people can step in and give you more specific advice.

Wow!

That's a great link!

Thanks!