SCINDAPSUS CUSCUARIA
PROTOLOGUE: Scindapsus cuscuaria , published in Epimeliae Botanicae 242 (1849). The protologue is reproduced below.
SYNONYMS:
HOMOTYPIC SYNONYMS: Aglaonema cuscuaria (Aubl.) Miq.; Pothos cuscuaria Aubl.
HETEROTYPIC SYNONYMS: Cuscuaria rumphii Schott; Scindapsus cannifolius Engl.
DISTRIBUTION: Nicobar Is. to SW. & C. Malesia: Java, Maluku, Nicobar, Philippines.
DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Indonesia: West Java.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Petiole ± 15–35 cm long, sheathed to far beyond the middle, the sheath narrowed gradually from a broad base to the apex; lamina more or less coriaceous, oblong or lanceolate-oblong, ± 20–40 × 10–20 cm, somewhat unequal-sided, the apex gradually shortly acuminate, the base obliquely and unequally rotundate or rotundate-cuneate and then slightly decurrent upon the petiole; primary veins remote, separated by several secondary ones, beneath stout in the lower part; secondary and tertiary veins regularly alternate, parallel to the primary ones.³
INFLORESCENCE:
Peduncle ± 2–3 cm long. Spathe navicular, 13 cm long, acuminate. Spadix sessile, cylindric, ± 10 (afterwards to 15) cm long, ± 2 cm diam., blunt; ovaries compressed at the base, the apex truncate, 4–6-angular; stigma nearly round or more or less elongated, sessile, the spadix therefore moderately smooth.³
ETYMOLOGY:
From Rumphius's Adpendix cuscuaria, the name under which the Ambonese plant was figured in the Herbarium Amboinense; Aublet took the phrase name up as Pothos cuscuaria and Presl transferred it to Scindapsus. The word is Rumphius's, presumably from a local name on Ambon, and its meaning is not explained in the sources held.²
NOTES:
1. Presl's entry of 1851 in the Epimeliae Botanicae is a bare transfer: it lists Scindapsus cuscuaria among the Rumphian plants to be moved from Pothos to Scindapsus, citing Pothos cuscuaria of Gmelin and Kunth and Rumphius's Adpendix cuscuaria of Ambon (Herbarium Amboinense 5: 488, t. 183, f. 1), and remarks that the spathes had never been drawn. No description accompanies the name.²
2. Alderwerelt's description was taken from dried Amboinese and Javanese specimens determined by Engler, which he found not quite identical but too little different to keep apart; he separated Scindapsus marantifolius from it by the primary veins similar to the secondary ones and not stout in the lower half, and by the stigma crowning a short but very distinct conical style that makes the spadix rough and rasp-like.³
3. The monograph took a broad view of the species, sinking Miquel's Scindapsus marantifolius, Schott's Cuscuaria marantifolia, Cuscuaria spuria and Cuscuaria rumphii, and Engler's own Scindapsus cannaefolius from the Bogor garden into it, and citing material from Java (Zollinger 760, Koorders from Tjampea and Tjibodas) and from Ambon (Zippelius; Boerlage 574, a number Alderwerelt later corrected to 514). Its account describes stout flowering branches about 2 cm thick with internodes 0.5–1 cm long, petioles 15–25 cm long sheathed to the geniculum, subleathery oblong-elliptic blades 20–30 cm long and 10–12.5 cm wide with very numerous subequal veins scarcely 1 mm apart joined by a marginal collective vein, a peduncle 2–3 cm long, a gaping boat-shaped spathe 6–9 cm long and a sessile cylindric spadix 5–8 cm long and 1.5–2.5 cm thick, the pistils 4–5 mm long with a depressed oval stigma on a very short style in the hollowed apex.⁴
4. The Bogor garden plant that Engler described in 1879 as Scindapsus cannaefolius, and that Engler and Krause later sank into Scindapsus cuscuaria, had been grown under the name Scindapsus giganteus; Engler's 1882 account notes that it could not be Roxburgh's plant of that name, which has cordate leaves and belongs to Epipremnum, and described it from the cultivated material with a stem about 3 cm thick, fleshy petioles 30 cm long, an oblong blade 35 cm long and 15 cm wide with all the veins subequal, and a sessile spadix 10 cm long.⁵
5. Hooker recorded a Nicobar Islands specimen (Jelinek, in the Calcutta herbarium) under Scindapsus cuscuaria with a query: an imperfect specimen with a very stout rootstock and coriaceous leaves with a stout costa and unequal-sided base that agreed so far with the Javan plant, the synonymy being taken from Engler.⁶
6. In 1922 Alderwerelt reconsidered his earlier separation of Scindapsus cuscuaria and Scindapsus marantifolius, which had rested on Buitenzorg (Bogor) herbarium plants named by Engler, and was inclined to consider all the Javanese plants so named really distinct from the single Amboinese specimen, Boerlage 514 (not 574 as cited by Engler), which may represent the typical form of Scindapsus cuscuaria. That specimen, one small and two large leaves with a fruiting spadix, has the petiole to 40 cm long with a leathery persistent sheath, a chartaceous relatively thin ovate blade about twice as long as broad (20–40 × 11–21 cm), broadest about a third above the base, with the base obliquely and broadly rounded, the midrib beneath more or less keeled and of the same colour as the blade, the primary and secondary veins nearly equal but the primaries occasionally thickened toward the base beneath, and a spadix at length about 15 cm long and 2 cm thick with the highest pistils sterile, a very short style and an oblong stigma, rather rounded on the higher fertile pistils.⁷
7. Boyce points out that Merrill in 1917 cited Robinson's Ambon collection P.R.A. 114 as representative of Rumphius's Adpendix cuscuaria latifolia, the phrase-name behind Pothos cuscuaria and thus behind Scindapsus cuscuaria and Scindapsus marantifolius, but that the Robinson specimens at Leiden and Washington are clearly Epipremnum ceramense.⁸
8. Engler and Krause took a broad view of this species in 1908, sinking Miquel's Scindapsus marantifolius into it along with three further names. That reduction did not stand: Alderwerelt reinstated Scindapsus marantifolius in 1920 and, after re-examining the Javanese and Amboinese material in 1922, kept the two apart. Plants of the World Online accepts both names and so does Aroidpedia, under the standing rule that a very old reduction no later worker has tested does not displace the current checklist, a test this one did receive and failed.³,⁴,⁷
STORY:
STORY TITLE: Rumphius's Adpendix and the name that meant too much
The name begins on Ambon. Georg Everhard Rumphius figured a climbing aroid of the island in the Herbarium Amboinense as Adpendix cuscuaria, without its spathes, and the phrase name passed into Linnaean botany as Pothos cuscuaria, credited to Aublet and to Gmelin, before Karel Presl transferred it in 1851 to Schott's new genus Scindapsus in a bare list, noting that the spathes had never been drawn. Nobody had described a plant. Miquel described one from Java in 1856 as Scindapsus marantifolius, the type of his subgenus Marantophyllum, and in 1908 Engler and Krause folded that species, Schott's Cuscuaria marantifolia, Cuscuaria spuria and Cuscuaria rumphii, and Engler's own Scindapsus cannaefolius from the Bogor garden into a single broad Scindapsus cuscuaria ranging from Java to Ambon.²,⁴
Alderwerelt pulled the concept apart again. In 1920 he separated Miquel's Javanese plant by its equal veins and its stigma on a short conical style, which makes the spadix look rough and rasp-like, and gave the first English description of Scindapsus cuscuaria from dried Amboinese and Javanese specimens that Engler had named. Two years later he went further and was inclined to consider all the Javanese plants so named really distinct, and the true Scindapsus cuscuaria might be represented only by a single Amboinese specimen, Boerlage 514, whose thin ovate blades, twice as long as broad, and spadix about 15 cm long he described in detail. Hooker had meanwhile recorded an imperfect specimen from the Nicobar Islands under the name with a query.³,⁷,⁶
The Rumphian thread has one more twist. Merrill, working over Rumphius's plants in 1917, cited a Robinson collection from Ambon as representative of the Adpendix cuscuaria latifolia, but Boyce wrote in 1998 that the Robinson collection is clearly Epipremnum ceramense. Plants of the World Online gives the species a range of Java, Maluku, the Nicobar Islands and the Philippines; what plant Rumphius drew, and whether the Javanese and Amboinese populations belong to it, remains as open as when Alderwerelt left it.⁸
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Scindapsus cuscuaria
2. Epimeliae Botanicae 242 (1849) — 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