SCINDAPSUS ALPINUS
PROTOLOGUE: Scindapsus alpinus , published in Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg ser. 3, 4: 228 (1922). The protologue is reproduced below.
DISTRIBUTION: Sumatera: Sumatra.
DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Indonesia: West Sumatra.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Translated from protologue: Climbing. Internodes of the branches about 1.5 cm long. Petiole about 35–40 cm long, channeled, sheathed up to the geniculum, which is about 1.5 cm long; sheath with a scarious, lacerate, deciduous margin; leaf blade leathery, rather thick, elongate-ovate-lanceolate, more or less falcately curved, about 35–40 × 8–10 cm, slightly unequal-sided, broadest below the middle, base obliquely rounded or on one side broadly rounded-cuneate, apex acute; midrib rounded (semi-terete) beneath when dry and darker than the blade; veins spreading; primary veins 8–10 on each side, slightly impressed above, distinctly prominent beneath, with several much finer, scarcely prominent secondary and tertiary veins between them.²
INFLORESCENCE:
Translated from protologue: Peduncle about 3.5 cm long. Spathe cylindric, 11–12 cm long, gaping, pale orange, acute. Spadix sessile, cylindric, about 7 cm long and 1.5 cm thick, obtuse; ovaries about 5 mm long, compressed at the base, flattened at the apex, 4–6-angled, 2–3 mm wide, pink, wrinkled-warty; style very short; stigma relatively large, flat, broadly oval, wider than the style, yellowish.²
ECOLOGY:
Found in forest on Mount Merapi, West Sumatra, at 1800 m.² altitude: 1800 m
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin alpinus, "of high mountains," presumably for the type locality high on Mount Merapi in West Sumatra, where Bünnemeijer collected the plant in forest at 1800 m; Alderwerelt did not explain the name.²
NOTES:
1. Known only from Bünnemeijer's collection made on Mount Merapi in September 1918; Alderwerelt described it without comparing it to any other species.²
2. Boyce and Wong list the species among those described after Engler and Krause's monograph of 1908, the last revision of the genus, and note that there is no modern account of Scindapsus and that many of its species are known only from fragmentary collections.³
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Scindapsus alpinus
2. Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg ser. 3, 4: 228 (1922) — protologue.
3. Boyce & Wong 2015. Compendium Genera Aracearum Malesianum. Aroideana 38E(1): 40–177