SCINDAPSUS ALTISSIMUS
PROTOLOGUE: Scindapsus altissimus , published in Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg ser. 3, 4: 346 (1922). The protologue is reproduced below.
DISTRIBUTION: Papuasia to N. Queensland: New Guinea, Queensland, Solomon Islands.
DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Indonesia: Papua.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Translated from protologue: Allied to Scindapsus cuscuarioides. Stem climbing to 40 m high. Petiole 35–50 cm long, sheathed to 1.5–4.5 cm below the geniculum; sheath leathery, persistent; blade leathery, subrotund- to ovate-oblong, 17–50 × 9–30 cm, more or less unequal-sided, one side at most nearly 1.5 times as wide as the other; veins innumerable, subequal, the primary ones here and there slightly thickened.²
INFLORESCENCE:
Translated from protologue: Spathe conoid-cylindric, about 50 cm long in the specimen. Spadix conoid-cylindric, 45 cm long and 3 cm thick in the specimen, up to 47 cm long and 6.5 cm thick according to the collector's label, thickest below the middle, gradually tapered toward the rather acute apex; ovaries prismatic at the apex, irregularly 4–6-angled, truncate.²
ECOLOGY:
Collected near Prauwen-bivak on the Mamberamo River in western New Guinea at 210 m.² altitude: 210 m
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin altissimus, "very tall" or "climbing highest": Alderwerelt recorded the stem as climbing to 40 m.²
NOTES:
1. Alderwerelt opened the protologue by placing the species next to Scindapsus cuscuarioides; the stem climbing to 40 m and the spathe about 50 cm long are the striking measurements he recorded from Lam's specimen and label.²
2. Bogner and Boyce cite Scindapsus altissimus as an example of the huge, few-stemmed climbers of the genus that reach the canopy of emergent trees and commonly exceed 60 m in height, as against the diffuse climbers on small trees or rock faces that make up most of the genus.³
3. 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.⁴
STORY:
STORY TITLE: Forty meters up, with a spathe half a meter long
In September 1920 Herman Johannes Lam, botanist of the Dutch expedition up the Mamberamo River in western New Guinea, collected a climbing aroid near Prauwen-bivak at 210 m. Alderwerelt described it in 1922 as Scindapsus altissimus, the tallest one, from a stem that climbed to 40 m; the leathery blades ran to 50 by 30 cm, the spathe in the specimen was about 50 cm long, and the spadix measured 45 cm in the specimen and, by the collector's label, up to 47 cm long and 6.5 cm thick. He placed it beside Scindapsus cuscuarioides, the big climber Ledermann had found on the Sepik in 1912.²
The species has since become the standard example of one of the two ways of being a Scindapsus. Bogner and Boyce, introducing Scindapsus lucens in 1994, divided the genus informally by vegetative habit: most species are diffuse climbers on small trees or rock faces that seldom exceed 5 m, but some, and they named Scindapsus altissimus, are huge few-stemmed climbers that reach the canopy of emergent trees and commonly exceed 60 m in height. Plants of the World Online now gives its range as New Guinea, Queensland and the Solomon Islands, but the species has had no treatment since Alderwerelt's, and the Compendium of Malesian aroid genera lists it among those still awaiting one.³,⁴
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Scindapsus altissimus
2. Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg ser. 3, 4: 346 (1922) — protologue.
4. Boyce & Wong 2015. Compendium Genera Aracearum Malesianum. Aroideana 38E(1): 40–177
Additional photos by Patrick Blanc
Additional photos by David Scherberich
Additional photos from Wikimedia Commons by Bruce Gray