Aponogeton
The Aponogetonaceae (the Cape-pondweed family or aponogeton family) are a family of flowering plants in the order Alismatales.
In recent decades the family has had universal recognition by taxonomists.[2] The APG system (1998) and APG II system (2003) treat it in the order Alismatales in the clade monocots. The family consists of only one genus, Aponogeton, with 56 known species (Christenhusz & Byng 2016 [3]) of aquatic plants, most of which have been included in a molecular phylogeny by Chen et al. (2015). The name was published in Supplementum Plantarum 32: 214 (1782) and is derived from a geographic location neighboring (geton) the Apono tribal district of coastal Gabon.[4] Some species are used as ornamental plants in aquariums.
They are aquatic plants, which are found in tropical to warm temperate regions of Africa, Asia and Australasia.[5]
Aponogeton distachyos is originally from South Africa but has become naturalised in South Australia, Western South America, and Western Europe.
Individual plants are not always easy to identify due to hybridization (particularly those sold as A. crispus - which are often cultivated hybrids with A. natans or A. rigidifolius).
Generally an Aponogeton from Asia will have a single bloom stalk, while those from African heritage (including Madagascar) will have multiple blooming stems on the same flower stalk.
