PHILODENDRON BICOLOR

PROTOLOGUE: Philodendron bicolor , published in Aroideana 35: 29 (2012).

Philodendron bicolor Croat, Scherberich, M. M. Mora & G. Ferry, sp. nov. Type: Cultivated under the number 1979.4.101 in the Jardin Botanique du Montet, Nancy (France) and flowered 26 June 2001, from wild source “PERU, Loreto: Colonia, Pebas”, originally collected by Serge Barrier in 1979, G. Ferry s.n. (holotype, NCY; isotypes K, LYJB, MO, P, US, USM). Figs. 1 A–D and 2 A–B.

DISTRIBUTION: N. Peru: Peru.

SPECIES DESCRIPTION:

Hemiepiphyte to 2 m tall in cultivation; internodes 0.7–10 cm long, 0.5–1 cm in diam., medium green stained red, somewhat scabrous at first then becoming smooth, semiglossy, epidermis turning light brown and matte with age; roots semiglossy, dark brown, wiry and very long, 2–3 mm in diam., scaly, active part yellow-brown, occasionally very densely and shortly hairy; cataphylls to 21 cm long, 2.5 cm large at the base, very weakly two-ribbed, pinkish red with greenish base and conspicuously short-dark-lineate throughout, rigid and glossy, early deciduous; petioles 5.7–15 cm long, 8–14 mm in diam. at one third, erect-spreading, forming an angle of about 60° with the stem, subterete, conspicuously swollen and spongy, broadly and obtusely sulcate adaxially, flattened toward the apex and distinctly curved before geniculum, markedly bicolorous, medium to dark-green adaxially and conspicuously dark purplish violet on abaxial side, dark lineate, bearing a distinct purplish ring at the junction with the blade, drying dark yellow-brown, matte, longitudinally and irregularly folded-ridged, minutely and densely transverse-fissured; blades extending from petioles at ca. 90° angle, linear-oblong, 21–50.8 cm × 3–7.3 cm, medium green when fresh turning dark green with age, bicolorous, semiglossy, conspicuously dark purplish violet abaxially, drying grayish brown and matte above, grayish yellow-brown and matte below; straight, slightly carinate, long-acuminate at apex, obtuse, subcordate to cordulate at base; midrib convex and medium green above, prominently raised and dark purplish violet below, more or less hemispherical in cross section, drying deeply sunken and concolorous above, thicker than broad, cinnamon-colored and acutely and irregularly ridged below; primary lateral veins 3 to 9 pairs per side, arising at about 40–55° angle, barely sunken above but distinctly raised below, drying weakly sunken and concolorous above, narrowly acute and irregular, paler below; interprimary veins few; minor veins numerous, moderately obscure, drying blackened; upper surface drying uniformly minutely and densely punctiform except on the obtusely raised minor veins; lower surface drying uniformly and densely pale-punctiform except on minor veins below.

INFLORESCENCE:

Inflorescences erect-spreading, 1 per axil; peduncle ca. 8 cm long, 5–10 mm diam., uniformly light green; spathe 10 cm long, to 3 cm wide at anthesis (1–1.2 times longer than peduncles), clearly demarcated from the peduncle, barely or not at all constricted above tube, the tube yellow to greenish-yellow outside, strongly stained purplish violet at the base with a distinct pointed purplish violet marking on the back, purplish violet inside extending well onto the blade, the rest of the blade yellow to greenish-yellow; spadix protruding forward at anthesis, to 10.4 cm long, 8–9 mm diam., shortly stipitate, the stipe 8 mm in front and 5 mm in rear; pistillate portion 2.7–3 cm × 7–8 mm, pale yellow, the staminate portion 6.3 cm long with a short 2 mm sterile portion, cylindric for the proximal 2/3 then shortly tapered, rounded to bluntly acute at apex, creamy white; ovary 6-locular; ovules 1 per locule with basal placentation, contained within translucent, gelatinous ovule sac.

ECOLOGY:

Found at less than 200 m elevation in a tropical moist forest life zone.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin bicolor, “two-colored,” referring to the distinctly different colors of the leaf blade, the upper surface dark green and the lower surface dark violet-purple.

NOTES:

1. The species is similar to Philodendron burlemarxii G. M. Barroso, which differs in having blades drying yellow-brown with less prominent primary lateral veins and with both blade surfaces short-pale-lineate, a more cordulate leaf base and less prominently long-acuminate blade apex as well as cataphylls which are acutely 2-ribbed.

2. Philodendron bicolor is a member of Philodendron subgen. Philodendron sect. Macrobelium subsect. Glossophyllum ser. Glossophyllum.

3. The species is characterized by the dark green linear-oblong pendent blades which are typically 7.8–8.8 times longer than wide and 3–3.5 times as long as petioles, with a much paler midrib with 3 to 9 pairs of inconspicuous primary lateral veins and the dark purplish violet color of the abaxial side of the leaves.

4. Philodendron paxianum K. Kr., a Bolivian species, is also similar to Philodendron bicolor but has blades much less longer than broad (4 times longer than broad), merely rounded at the base and with the minor veins much more closely spaced and concolorous with the surface, not blackened as in Philodendron bicolor.

STORY:

STORY TITLE: A Loreto philodendron that waited three decades to be named

Philodendron bicolor was hiding in plain sight. Its living plants were gathered by the French botanist Serge Barrier, who collected in the northern and eastern reaches of Peru’s Loreto Department in 1979 and 1980 while working among the region’s indigenous communities. Barrier’s plants reached the Nancy Botanical Garden in 1979, and there Geneviève Ferry kept the rare accessions alive year after year and saw to their study and vouchering.²

The plant was not recognized as new until decades later. In 2006 Marcela Mora, a Philodendron specialist then writing her Lucid key to the genus during an internship at Kew, examined the Nancy aroid collection. David Scherberich, long associated with the Nancy garden and now manager of the tropical collections at Lyon, first drew Thomas Croat’s attention to the plants. One of them, cultivated under number 1979.4.101, flowered at the Jardin Botanique du Montet in Nancy on 26 June 2001 and became the type of a species named for the two colors of its leaf, dark green above and dark violet-purple beneath.²

REFERENCES:

1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Philodendron bicolor

2. Aroideana 35: 29 (2012) — protologue.

Additional photos by David Scherberich