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Tufa

PlantAKiss

Moderator Schmoderator Fluorescent fluorite, Engl
I did do a search (before posting, as eternally instructed by Dandy), but most of the topics I found were rather old.

Recently I saw and purchased a hunk of tufa. Its very porous and calciferous so I thought about trying some Mexi pings on it. I was going to soak/rinse it, then pack some peat into it and then try a leaf or two.

As anyone grown Mexi pings on tufa before?

I did have a nice piece with some good openings in it but it was broken into two pieces by the time I got it home. No returning it now. :-/
 
Never hear of this before.I'll have to google it.Good luck with it!



Jerry
 
I did the Google:

Tufa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This article is about the geological formation. For the Xianbei clan with the family name Tufa during China's Sixteen Kingdoms period, see Southern Liang.
Not to be confused with tuff, a type of volcanic rock.

Tufa towers at Mono Lake, California.Tufa is the name for an unusual geological form of calcite rock.

Tufa is a rough, thick, rock-like calcium carbonate deposit that forms by precipitation from bodies of water with a high dissolved calcium content. Tufa is not to be confused with tuff, which is volcanic.

Tufa deposition occurs in seven known ways:

Mechanical precipitation by wave action against the shore. This form of tufa can be useful for identifying the shoreline of extinct lakes (for example in the Lake Lahontan region).
Precipitation from supersaturated hot spring water entering cooler lake water.
Precipitation in lake bottom sediments which are fed by hot springs from below.
Precipitation from calcium-bearing spring water in an alkaline lake rich in carbonates.
Precipitation throughout the lake as the lake dries out.
Through the agency of algae. Microbial influence is often vital to tufa precipitation.
Precipitation from cold water springs (for example in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains near Hinton, Alberta).
There are some prominent towers of tufa at Mono Lake and Trona Pinnacles in California, USA, formed by the fourth method mentioned above whilst submerged and subsequently exposed by falling water levels. Tufa is also common in Armenia.


[edit] Practical use
Tufa is today occasionally shaped into a planter. Its porous consistency makes tufa ideal for alpine gardens. A concrete mixture called hypertufa is used for similar purposes

Between Joseph Clemens and the Pietropaolo book, it might work with P. gypsicola, P. moranensis, and a couple others that like an alkaline environment.
 
Somewhere on BobZ's CP Photofinder, I saw an image of someone growing Pinguicula gypsicola growing in a large block of tufa.

Here is a link to that image: Group growing in lump of tufa
 
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Awesome! That is exactly how I was thinking of doing it. Although...due to the breakage...I no longer have the nice large holes.

Oddly enough, last nite at the rock club meeting I purchased a piece of tufa collected in Arizona. It looks very different from the block I purchased...more like small clumpings of thin, pin-like structures.

I guess it won't hurt to try it.

Thanks y'all. :)
 
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