Previously from Guppylog:

http://www.guppylog.com/story/2006/3/28/151522/573
Plant Bulbs    
Diary By barnprincess81 Watch for softness in bulbs for sale. Recently, she didn't get as good a package as you. Your nose will know if you open the package and poke around...

http://www.guppylog.com/story/2006/2/5/141032/7340
Jaymi's wonderful deal

http://www.guppylog.com/story/2004/4/28/2418/46883
Miskairal’s Corel and Aponogetons. Fertilizing them What is growing in her creek?

Christel Kasselmann's Aquarium Plants (c. 2003) the new "Bible" of aquarium plants has quite an essay on Apongeton. She noted that there were many good for aquaria. She delineates four specific habitats (though there is quite an overlap in species found in them) and debunks some mistaken info long floating around in the hobby in a great essay on them.

Karel Rataj's Aquarium Plants; Their Care, Identification and Ecology (c. 1977) favors crosses for the aquarium. Quite a bit on where they are from.

Both books are "keepers" by the way and somewhat to very expensive. Probably available through inter-library loans.

.........

The Aponogeton don't mind more light (though I burned the ends of leaves of a Madagascar lace in Sunlight) but may need only half the lumens/ lux that is the minimum for sword plants. (One of Miskairal's posts has me revising a broader generalization there.)

Some of them come from temporary ponds and waters. Seasonally they die back to bulbs - much like our spring bulb plants. The most common in stores are Apon. chrispus and its hybrides. (There are also chrispus cultivars, known only to the hobby.) Kasselmann, when considering the bulbs easiest to dry and peddle, also includes A. abyssinicus - a very distinctive plant from Eastern Africa, A. decaryi, A. natins (one of many great plants from Sri Lanka, but over collected and A. ulvaceus, a convoluted stunner from Madagascar.

The dual blossom spikes may indicate an African/ Malagasy origin. To fertilize them, they may have to be forcibly rubbed against each other or better yet, against the blossom of another plant. Watch for the development of seeds/ corms. Those could be plants in a shallow container (plastic shoe box?) in a window when small. Make sure they don't cook there.