Question on Plants

[GPounda]

I'm watching a lot of videos on planted aquariums and it seems like the Europeans and Brits have plants with "sp," in them but North American shops don't.

What does the "sp" reference?

I"m considering the following combination, based upon European videos:

Eleocharis Parvula

Rotala sp H'Ra

Rotala Najenshan

Limnophilia sp  Vietnam

[Mississippi fish guy]

Im not entirely sure but I think sp refers to the species by something other than the scientific name. An example might would be instead of Pogostemmon stellatus octopus it could be Pogostemmon sp. octopus. You would be able to find a better answer if you were to search something along the line of “what does sp stand for in a scientific name (or binomial nomenclature).

[GPounda]

That was it exactly, thank you

[Odd Duck]

Yes, as @Mississippi fish guy said, sp. stands for species when the species is unknown.  Usually used when there is a named variety with uncertain parents, when the genetics are not fully known, or if the species might be hard to identify without more information, or hasn’t yet been identified or scientifically described.  For instance, if you didn’t know for sure the exact species of Vallisneria, you might list it as Vallisneria sp.  Or if you didn’t know that Anubias nana ‘Petite’ was a nana variant it might get listed a Anubias sp. ‘Petite’.  Or a brand new species of Anubias would be listed as an Anubias sp. until it gets fully described and assigned a species name.

Another abbreviation you might see is spp. with 2 “p”s.  If you had a bin full of various Vallisneria plant species, it could get listed as Vallisneria spp. indicating it is multiple species, not necessarily that they are unknown species.  The same with a bin holding a variety of mixed species of Anubias plants might be listed as Anubias spp. instead of listing each different species.

The same principles apply whether it is plants or animals, by the way.  I just used plants as the examples.

[GPounda]

@Odd Duck - another reason I regret a my Liberal Arts degree!!! LOL 😄