On June 21 2003, GWAPA visited Maryland Aquatic Nurseries. Six members
showed up – not the greatest turnout, but I’m glad I was one of them.
The weather was pretty good considering all the rain we’ve been getting
and it was fun walking around looking at all the plants species, a lot of
which you may also find in home aquaria. The grounds were a little
muddy and I had to watch my step, least I slip and fall. Actually at
one point (trying to take a picture) I almost lost my balance, and
would have splash landed in one of the growing ponds if it were not
for the years of training I recieved in elementary school on the
balancing beam.

I took a LOT of pictures – much to the annoyance of the other
GWAPA members – but who care about them anyway right?
I took the pictures so that some of you who couldnt make it
out there can see what you missed. So without further ado,
I give to you:

THE MUDSHOE DAIRIES

	The pond at Maryland Aquatic Nurseries enterance. Doesn’t that bench look inviting? Next year I’ll have to make a pond.
	Aha! PLANTS! Lemme at em! Lemme at em!!
	Look a frog! Where? WHERE?! Lemme at em! Lemme at em!!
	Ivo investigates the floating gunk. Yummy! (Azolla carolina)
	Aquatic bonsai trees! Interesting stuff. Look at Ivo – he’s rubbing his hands in anticipation of owning this little beauty!
	Pitcher plants! The amazing colors these plants have is the first thing you notice!
	A closer look….
	…and another one. Sorry I couldn’t help it!
	Parrots feather. TONS of it!
	Jack found lots of frogs! Heres a tiny one. Smaller than my finger nail!
	Bacopa carolina. TONS of it!
	The fish pens – AKA plant fertlizer.
	Potamogen crispus! There were several other plants that were growing submersed that I couldn’t take pictures of, including horwort, ejeria densa, ejera sp., najas sp and vallisneria sp.
	Hm. Here’s something interesing. It was marked ‘Red Rotala’. It looks like emersed grown rotala rotundafolia.
	A closer look at the ‘Red Rotala’ flower. I’ll try and get a positive ID on it later and this picture should help.
	Bacopa monnerii AKA moneywort
	Hydrocotyle vulgaris? Hydrocotyle verticillata? One of those – it wasn’t labelled.
	Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides? Nice stuff!
	Hygrophila sp., possibly hygrophila salicaifolia?
	Ozelot swords! Very very nice!
	…and a nice close up!
	Echinodorus sp. emersed and flowering!
	Rick just couldn’t resist buying something.

Thats all the pictures I have folks. I hope you enjoyed viewing them as much
as I enjoyed taking them. Doesn’t beat being there but I hope I was able
to show you some of it.

Ghazanfar Ghori

BTW – you won’t see any pictures of me there – as usual – the one
behind the camera.

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