SCINDAPSUS FALCIFOLIUS
PROTOLOGUE: Scindapsus falcifolius , published in Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie 37: 119 (1905). The protologue is reproduced below.
DISTRIBUTION: Sulawesi: Sulawesi.
DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Indonesia: North Sulawesi Philippines: Sulu.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Translated from protologue: Stem 5–6 mm thick, with internodes 3–4 cm long and a yellowish, peeling epidermis. Petiole of the spreading leaves about as long as an internode and a quarter as long as the blade, 3–4 cm long, sheathed for its whole length, the sheath compressed; blade subleathery, bright green, falcate, one side 1.5 times as wide as the other, 15–16 cm long and 3.5–4 cm wide, with numerous, rather distant primary lateral veins and finer ascending secondary veins.²
INFLORESCENCE:
Translated from protologue: Peduncle shorter than the spathe. Spathe rather thick, yellowish, broadly ovoid-boat-shaped, 6 cm long, apiculate. Spadix sessile, thickly club-shaped, 6–7 cm long and 1.5 cm thick toward the top. Pistils prismatic, scarcely longer than wide, truncate at the apex, with a linear-oblong, protruding stigma.²
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin falx, "sickle," and folium, "leaf," for the sickle-shaped leaf blade that Engler gave as the first distinction from Scindapsus treubii.²
NOTES:
1. A species allied to Scindapsus treubii, from which it differs by the sickle-shaped leaf blade, the more distant lateral veins, the broad spathe and the larger pistils.²
2. Besides the Sulawesi type the monograph cites a Warburg specimen from the Jolo (Sulu) Islands of the Philippines, a record not carried by Plants of the World Online, and repeats Engler's remark that the species is allied to Scindapsus treubii but differs in the sickle-shaped blade, the more distant lateral veins, the broad spathe and the larger pistils.³
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Scindapsus falcifolius
2. Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie 37: 119 (1905) — protologue.
3. Engler & Krause 1908. Araceae-Monsteroideae. Das Pflanzenreich IV.23B (Heft 37): 4–139