SCINDAPSUS GLAUCESCENS

PROTOLOGUE: Scindapsus glaucescens , published in Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg ser. 3, 1: 387 (1920).

Scindapsus glaucescens (Engl. & K.Krause) Alderw., comb. nov. Basionym: Rhaphidophora glaucescens Engl. & K.Krause, Das Pflanzenreich IV.23B (Heft 37): 44 (1908), pro parte. Type: Borneo; the sterile plant cultivated in the Buitenzorg (Bogor) Botanic Garden under the number Z 58, on which Engler and Krause founded Rhaphidophora glaucescens.

SYNONYMS:

HOMOTYPIC SYNONYMS: Rhaphidophora glaucescens Engl. & K.Krause

DISTRIBUTION: Borneo: Borneo.

SPECIES DESCRIPTION:

Petiole stout, to 30–40 cm long, canaliculate above, sheathed to far beyond the middle, terete between the sheath and the knee, the sheath narrowed towards the apex, with the margin scariose and fugacious; knee 3–4 cm long, slightly swollen; lamina coriaceous, obliquely oblong or lanceolate-oblong, ± 40–65 × 15–25 cm, slightly unequal-sided, the apex shortly acuminate, the base rotundate-cuneate; costa above slightly convex when fresh; primary veins to 40–50 on a side, obliquely ascending, slightly upcurved towards the apex, separated by 6–8 finer secondary and tertiary ones parallel to the primary ones.²

INFLORESCENCE:

Peduncle stout, ± 10 cm long. Spadix sessile, conoid-cylindric, ± 25 cm long and 4 cm diam., slightly narrowed towards the sterile, blunt apex; ovaries laterally compressed, ± 1 cm high, the apex truncate, rhomboidal, to 7½ mm thick; stigma large, shortly linear, slightly elevated, crowning a convex, subverruculose projection.²

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin glaucescens, "becoming glaucous" or "bluish grey." The epithet was Engler and Krause's for Rhaphidophora glaucescens, the sterile Bogor garden plant that Alderwerelt transferred to Scindapsus; it presumably alluded to a glaucous leaf surface²

NOTES:

1. Alderwerelt found that Engler and Krause's Rhaphidophora glaucescens, founded on sterile material cultivated at Buitenzorg under the number Z 58, covered two absolutely different species that had climbed the same tree; he restricted the name to the plant with the stout petiole, the rounded-cuneate leaf base and the large, shortly linear stigma, transferred it to Scindapsus, and described the other plant as Scindapsus mamillifer.²

2. The spathe was still unknown when the combination was made, and the stated origin is simply Borneo.²

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.³

STORY:

STORY TITLE: Two species on one tree

In 1908 Engler and Krause described Rhaphidophora glaucescens from sterile material cultivated in the Buitenzorg garden under the number Z 58, a plant said to have come from Borneo. Twelve years later Cornelis van Alderwerelt van Rosenburgh, working through the garden's aroids, found that the diagnosis covered two absolutely different species that had formerly climbed the same tree. Both, once they flowered, proved to be Scindapsus, and he separated them in 1920: Scindapsus glaucescens, with a stout petiole 30 to 40 cm long, a rounded-cuneate leaf base, a sessile spadix 25 cm long and a large, shortly linear stigma on a convex projection, and Scindapsus mamilliferus, with a slender petiole 75 to 100 cm long, a blade cordate on at least one side, a leathery yellowish spathe 30 cm long, and a large nipple-shaped style from which the second species takes its name.²

The spathe of Scindapsus glaucescens was still unknown when the combination was made, and the origin of both plants remains simply Borneo. Neither has been treated since; the Compendium of Malesian aroid genera lists both among the species described after the 1908 monograph and notes that there is no modern account of Scindapsus and that many of its species are known only from fragmentary collections.²,³

REFERENCES:

1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Scindapsus glaucescens

2. Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg ser. 3, 1: 387 (1920) — protologue.

3. Boyce & Wong 2015. Compendium Genera Aracearum Malesianum. Aroideana 38E(1): 40–177