How2Day: Flowers That Desert Turtles Won't Eat

Because of their native habitat, desert turtles scrounge the landscape for any available source of food. Normal drought conditions make animals living in that terrain necessarily indiscriminate. When kept as pets, their roaming appetites do not change if let loose on a lawn. Nor do desert turtles discriminate plants that are toxic to them. Still, while desert turtles may still sample whatever flowering plant they can reach, there are some that they will not eat.

Turtles disregard the broad and thick dark green leaves of the Anubias barteri var. nana. Hardy and rugged, the Anubias needs little light and produces a white flower with a yellow stigma that looks like a small Calla lily bloom, tubular with a spreading tip. At first, the flower will look like a new leaf growing from the plant. In poor growing conditions, the slow-growing Anubias can continue to thrive but will not flower. Because the Anubias grows well submerged in water, aquarium supply stores typically sell it. The Anubias is a low-growing tropical plant native to central and western Africa that can reach 4 inches in height, with leaves that can be 1.2 inches in length. Even smaller varieties--the "mini" and "petite"--are available.

Turtles do not eat the green stems or tea-to-red colored leaves of the Ludwigia repens, a species of the evening primrose family that can grow 12 to 20 inches in length, usually low to the ground. Turtles also do not touch the Ludwigia's tiny yellow blooms, each with four petals. Native to southern California and southern Florida and southern parts of the states in between, the Ludwigia grows near or in water in the wild. It needs little maintenance. The more sun it receives, the more colorful its leaves will become. With pruning, it will grow bushy, like a shrub.

Turtles may uproot the Amazon sword plant because younger plants have weak root systems; but turtles will not eat the plant's long thin green leaves that can grow up to 20 inches long and 3 inches wide. Each Amazon sword plant can bear up to 30 leaves that sprout from the plant's center and can look like an arugula plant. Once the roots strengthen, the plant needs little maintenance but it appreciates medium sun. Native to Brazil and often thriving in Florida, the Amazon sword plant grows well submerged. When completely underwater it will not produce the floral stalks that sprout alongside the leaves and produce tiny pale white flowers.

How2Day