SCINDAPSUS BECCARII
PROTOLOGUE: Scindapsus beccarii , published in Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie 1: 182 (1880). The protologue is reproduced below.
DISTRIBUTION: W. Malesia: Borneo, Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra.
DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Malaysia: Penang, Perak, Sarawak, Terengganu Indonesia: Riau Islands, West Sumatra Brunei: Temburong.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Translated from Engler & Krause (1908): Stem terete, stout, 5–6 m long, 2 cm and more thick, with internodes 2.5–6 cm long. Leaves crowded; petiole fleshy, stout, on sterile branches 15–28 cm long and nearly 2 cm thick below, passing above into a geniculum 1–1.5 cm long and 6–10 mm thick, furnished with a rather broad, thick, persistent sheath reaching the base of the geniculum, on flowering branchlets sometimes only 5 cm long and with a shorter geniculum; blade thick, bright green, oblong-elliptic or oblanceolate, unequal-sided, narrowed about equally toward both ends, apex acute, base shortly decurrent, 24–30 cm long and 10–12 cm wide, with 12–13 primary lateral veins on each side leaving the stout midrib at an acute angle and ascending in an arc toward the margin, numerous finer parallel secondary veins, and fine transverse veins joined in a network.⁴
INFLORESCENCE:
Translated from Engler & Krause (1908): Peduncle 8–10 cm long and 1–1.2 cm thick. Spathe fleshy, oblong, obtuse, 9–10 cm long, about 3 cm wide when convolute, waxy white. Spadix yellow, sessile, cylindric, slightly tapered toward the apex, 7–8 cm long and about 2 cm thick in the middle. Pistils prismatic, 4 mm long, the hexagonal apex about 3 mm in diameter, thinner below, crowned by a small orbicular stigma. Berries about 5 mm long, enclosing a white seed 4 mm long.⁴
ECOLOGY:
Found in rain forest on rocks and tree stumps at Larut, Perak, at 30–200 m; also recorded on the coast of Terengganu, at Bau and Matang in Sarawak, and at Ajer Mantjoer near Padang in West Sumatra at 360 m.⁴ altitude: 30–360 m
ETYMOLOGY:
Honors Odoardo Beccari (1843–1920), the Italian botanist and explorer of Borneo and Sumatra, who collected the type at Ajer Mantjoer near Padang in West Sumatra; Engler described the species in his account of Beccari's Malesian aroids.²
NOTES:
1. Translated from protologue: Stem thick, leaves crowded, the fleshy thick petiole as long as the blade or a little longer and sheathed to the middle; blade leathery, oblong-elliptic, unequal-sided, narrowed about equally toward both ends, acute, the base shortly decurrent into the geniculum, with about 13 primary lateral veins on each side leaving the midrib at an acute angle and numerous parallel secondary veins; peduncle a little shorter than the sheath; spathe not seen; spadix thick, tapered toward the apex; berries hexagonal above, twice as long as wide, crowned by a small orbicular stigma.²
2. In the key to the Peninsular Malaysian species Scindapsus beccarii is the stout, short-climbing to perching lowland epiphyte whose large oblanceolate, glossy deep green leaves, up to 75 × 25 cm, are carried in a litter-trapping fan, with a white spathe.³
3. Engler and Krause united Scindapsus crassipes with Scindapsus beccarii, citing Beccari's Sarawak collection 202, the type of Scindapsus crassipes, under the combined species, and gave a further account with figure 28.⁴
4. Hooker likewise queried the identity of Penang and Perak plants collected by Scortechini and King's Collector, which differ from Engler's figures of Scindapsus beccarii in the petiole sheathing to the knee and in the spathe emerging from the middle of the leaf sheath rather than from its apex; King's Collector described the stem as 15–20 ft. long and 1½–2 in. in diameter, the leaves dark glossy green, the spathe waxy white and the spadix cream-coloured, and Hooker noted the very narrow, laterally compressed ovaries not one-tenth of an inch across the crown.⁶
5. Alderwerelt described a variety lingganus from Pulau Singkep in the Lingga Archipelago (Bünnemeijer 7184, in forest at 60 m, 2 August 1919), differing from the typical form in all its dimensions being smaller: petiole 6–15 cm long with a broadly and deciduously scarious-margined sheath, oblanceolate blade 12–27 × 4–9 cm broadest above the middle with numerous veins, the secondary, tertiary and quaternary ones progressively finer than the primaries, peduncle to 5 cm, white acuminate spathe to 6 cm long and 1.5 cm wide, and ivory spadix to 4 cm long and 1 cm thick.⁷
6. Hotta collected the species near Minah camp in the Bintulu district of Sarawak in February 1964 and at Bukit Peradayan in Temburong, Brunei, in January 1964, noting that his specimens have a narrower leaf blade than Engler's description and figure and that the Brunei plant has a more oblique blade.⁸
7. Kartini, Siva Rohgini and Boyce refer to a second informal group, the perching, litter-trapping epiphytic or lithophytic Beccarii Complex, named for this species, whose thick blade texture and obscure venation resemble those of the Coriaceus Complex.⁹
8. Boyce and Wong cite the Scindapsus beccarii complex as the exemplar of the perching, litter-trapping epiphytes within a genus that also holds colossal high-climbing primary hemiepiphytes and almost shrubby secondary hemiepiphytes.¹⁰
9. Ridley treated the species in 1907 and again in 1925 as the short, stout-stemmed plant of the genus, the stem 2 to 3 feet long, with thickly leathery dark green leaves 6 to 15 inches long on petioles sheathing for most of their length, a white boat-shaped spathe 1.5 to 3 inches long and greyish white fruit, growing usually on rocks above tidal rivers. In 1925 he recorded it in Perak, the Dindings, Province Wellesley, Kemaman and Trengganu and extending to Borneo and Sumatra; he recorded two forms, one narrow-leaved with a small inflorescence and one much broader with a large spadix, which he said pass into each other. In both editions he placed Scindapsus crassipes in the synonymy of this species, as Engler and Krause did in 1908. Three old authorities therefore unite the two names, and Plants of the World Online keeps them apart; Aroidpedia follows the checklist, under the standing rule that a very old reduction no later worker has tested does not displace the current checklist.⁴,¹²,¹³
STORY:
STORY TITLE: Beccari's two aroids and a century of second thoughts
In 1880 Adolf Engler described two thick-petioled Scindapsus from Odoardo Beccari's collections on a single page: Scindapsus crassipes, from Sarawak, with a fleshy petiole half as long as the blade, and Scindapsus beccarii, from Ajer Mantjoer near Padang in West Sumatra, with a petiole as long as the blade or longer and sheathed only to the middle. Two years later, in his account of Beccari's Malesian aroids, he separated them in a key by the petiole and called the Sumatran plant similar to the Bornean one but distinct by the characters he had set out.²,⁵
The doubts began at once. Joseph Hooker, treating the Malay Peninsula in 1893, referred plants of Scortechini and King's Collector to both species with a query: his Scindapsus beccarii differed from Engler's figures in the petiole sheathing to the knee and in the spathe emerging from the middle of the sheath, and his Scindapsus crassipes rested on an imperfect specimen and a drawing. In the monograph of 1908 Engler and Krause gave up the distinction and cited Beccari's Sarawak collection 202, the type of Scindapsus crassipes, under Scindapsus beccarii, which they described at last in full, with a waxy white spathe and a yellow spadix, from the Perak material. Ridley, listing the aroids of Borneo in 1905, had done the opposite, keeping Scindapsus crassipes as the species with Beccari's plant as its variety and calling it common on the limestone rocks at Bau. Alderwerelt added a small-leaved variety from the Lingga Archipelago in 1922. Plants of the World Online accepts both of Engler's names.⁶,⁴,¹¹,⁷
What the plant is like in life emerges from the modern Malaysian accounts: a stout, short-climbing to perching lowland epiphyte whose large oblanceolate, glossy deep green leaves, up to 75 by 25 cm, are held in a fan that traps falling litter. The Compendium of Malesian aroid genera cites the Scindapsus beccarii complex as the exemplar of the perching, litter-trapping epiphytes of the genus, and Kartini, Siva Rohgini and Boyce name a Beccarii Complex of such plants beside the Coriaceus Complex of the kerangas ridges.³,¹⁰,⁹
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Scindapsus beccarii
2. Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie 1: 182 (1880) — protologue.
4. Engler & Krause 1908. Araceae-Monsteroideae. Das Pflanzenreich IV.23B (Heft 37): 4–139
5. Engler 1882. Aracee della Malesia e della Papuasia raccolte da O. Beccari. Malesia 1: 259–302
6. Hooker 1893. Scindapsus. The Flora of British India 6: 541–543
8. Hotta 1966. Notes on Bornean plants I. Acta Phytotaxonomica et Geobotanica 22(1–2): 1–10
10. Boyce & Wong 2015. Compendium Genera Aracearum Malesianum. Aroideana 38E(1): 40–177
12. Ridley 1907. Araceae. Materials for a Flora of the Malayan Peninsula, Part III: 1–53
13. Ridley 1925. Araceae. The Flora of the Malay Peninsula 5: 84–131
Additional photos by Patrick Blanc