SCINDAPSUS HEDERACEUS

Species

PROTOLOGUE: Scindapsus hederaceus , published in Flora van Nederlandsch Indië 3: 185 (1856). The protologue is reproduced below.

SYNONYMS:

HOMOTYPIC SYNONYMS: Pothos hederaceus Zoll. & Moritzi

HETEROTYPIC SYNONYMS: Scindapsus inquinatus Schott; Scindapsus poilanei Gagnep.; Scindapsus pothoides Miq.

OTHER NAMES: Kho kio, คอกิ่ว (Thai, Peninsular Thailand)

DISTRIBUTION: Indo-China to W. & C. Malesia: Borneo, Cambodia, Java, Laos, Lesser Sunda Islands, Peninsular Malaysia, Philippines, Sumatra, Thailand, Vietnam.

DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Thailand: Chaiyaphum, Khon Kaen, Narathiwat, Phangnga, Ranong, Satun Malaysia: Johor, Kedah, Melaka, Pahang, Penang, Perak, Selangor Singapore: Bukit Timah Indonesia: West Java, West Sumatra Philippines: Negros Occidental.

SPECIES DESCRIPTION:

Medium to large, moderately robust, leptocaul, homeophyllous secondary hemiepiphyte to 10 m. Stems terete, ca 1.5 cm diam., epidermis pale green, drying pale brown and remaining intact. Leaves rather regularly arranged on climbing stems, tending to cluster towards tips of flowering stems; petiole prominently winged, 7–12 by 1–2 cm, apical and basal pulvini weakly defined; petiolar sheath very prominent, spreading and wing-like, persistent, briefly ligulate at apex; leaf blade lanceolate-elliptic to linear-lanceolate, slightly to markedly oblique, 12–17 by 2–4 cm, thinly coriaceous, base subacute usually oblique with one side slightly auriculate and the other somewhat cuneate, apex acute to attenuate, with a prominent apiculate tubule, pale green, slightly glossy, juvenile leaves frequently with moderate to extensive, silvery, longitudinally banded variegation; midrib raised abaxially, slightly sunken adaxially; primary lateral veins pinnate, slightly raised abaxially and adaxially; interprimaries parallel to primaries and only slightly less prominent, very slightly raised abaxially and adaxially; secondary and tertiary venation ± obscure in fresh material, visible as a faint reticulum in dried specimens.⁴

INFLORESCENCE:

Inflorescence solitary, very rarely 2 together, arising on free lateral and less often adherent shoots, subtended by a fully developed foliage leaf; peduncle compressed-cylindrical, 4–8.5 by 0.5–0.75 cm; spathe broadly cigar-shaped, 7.5–9 by 1–3 cm, very long, stoutly beaked, thinly stiff-fleshy, dull yellow, paler internally, caducous at pistillate anthesis; spadix cylindrical, 3–6 by 1–2.5 cm, sessile, inserted ± level on peduncle; stylar region mostly longitudinally rhombohexagonal, 3–4.5 by 1.2–2 mm, truncate; stigma longitudinally elongated, flush, ca 2 mm. Infructescence stoutly cylindrical, 6–8 by 2–2.5 cm, edges of stylar plates recurving and the whole somewhat waxy in appearance, ripening dull yellow.⁴

ECOLOGY:

Found in dry evergreen forest, very rarely in peat swamp forest, on sandstone and sometimes on limestone.⁴

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin hederaceus, "ivy-like," the epithet of Zollinger and Moritzi's Pothos hederaceus that Miquel took up; the allusion is presumably to the ivy-like habit of a slender climber clinging to tree trunks, which Zollinger's record of the plant climbing on trees at Tjikoja suggests.²

NOTES:

1. Miquel's protologue is a two-line entry: the plant, as Scindapsus hederacea of Zollinger and Moritzi, was reported to differ from Scindapsus rumphii in petioles winged to the apex and spadices half as long, but Miquel had not seen it himself and referred the reader to Zollinger's Systematisches Verzeichniss; the only locality given is Tjikoja in Java, where Zollinger found it climbing on trees.²

2. Scindapsus hederaceus is distinctive by the strongly winged petioles and narrowly lanceolate, often falcate leaf blades. It is most similar to Scindapsus officinalis but readily separated by the narrower leaf blades and the fact that the stem epidermis dries pale brown and remains attached in dry material whereas that of Scindapsus officinalis dries distinctively orange-brown and readily flakes away. The Flora of Thailand gives the range as Indo-China (type of Scindapsus poilanei) to western and central Malesia, including Sumatra, Java (type, and types of Scindapsus pothoides and its var. angustata) and Borneo (type of Scindapsus inquinatus).⁴

3. In the key to the Peninsular Malaysian species Scindapsus hederaceus and Scindapsus perakensis share oblong-lanceolate blades with the primary lateral veins impressed above and raised beneath and a petiole broadly and conspicuously open-winged to the pulvinus; Scindapsus hederaceus has a spadix about 3.5 cm long at anthesis, Scindapsus perakensis one of 10–15 cm.⁵

4. Plants cultivated in the Buitenzorg (Bogor) Gardens showed Alderwerelt characters not given by Engler and Krause: the blade rounded or slightly cordate at the base, the spathe deciduous, the spadix sessile and subcylindrical with the middle not much thicker than the base and apex, the ovaries truncate at the apex, pale brown-yellow with an elevated pale green margin and verruculose or rugulose between the margin and the stigma, and the stigma shortly linear, slightly elevated, white and soon black.⁶

5. Engler and Krause described a stem 8–12 m long with straight slender branchlets, petioles 5–8 cm long broadly sheathed to the short geniculum, thinly leathery obliquely oblong or oblong-lanceolate blades 12.5–17.5 cm long and 4–6 cm wide contracted abruptly into a very sharp cusp nearly 2 cm long, a slender peduncle 4–6.5 cm long, a pale yellow ovate-oblong long-acuminate spathe 4–6 cm long, a very shortly stipitate fusiform-cylindric spadix 4–5 cm long in flower and nearly 10 cm in fruit, and a shining blue reniform seed; a note adds the flagelliform shoots with internodes 5–7.5 cm long and broadly ovate, subcordate leaves only 6–9 cm long. The specimens cited came from Malacca, Perak, Pahang, Penang, Selangor, Kedah, Johor and Singapore, from Java up to 1450 m in the rain forest at Tjibodas, from Ajer Mantjoer in West Sumatra, from southern Borneo and from Cochinchina, and the addenda add West Negros in the Philippines.⁷

6. Hooker described a stem climbing 30–40 ft., as thick as a goose-quill or more, rather thinly coriaceous falcately lanceolate leaves 5–8 by 1–2½ in. with the petiole broadly winged up to the knee, a stout peduncle 1–2 in., a narrow long-beaked pale yellow spathe 2–2½ in., a white fruiting spadix 3–4 in. and berries about ¼ in. across the crown, adding that the leaves are broadly ovate and cordate in young plants; his material came from Perak (Scortechini, King's Collector) and Malacca (Griffith, Maingay), with Java as the wider distribution.⁸

7. Ridley listed the species for Borneo from Korthals's collection in the south of the island, calling it common in the Malay Peninsula and Haviland's Bornean plant a very small form.⁹

8. Hotta collected the species along the Ulu Sungai Kakus in the Bintulu district of Sarawak in November 1963.¹⁰

9. The Genera of Araceae reports Went's observation of 1895 that Scindapsus hederaceus, studied under the name Scindapsus pothoides, shows no clear distinction between anchor and feeder roots: anchor roots develop all over the stem but are larger and longer at the nodes and may reach the soil.¹¹

10. Ridley treated the species twice for the Peninsula, in 1907 and 1925, giving a stem 30 feet tall or more climbing on trees and rocks, falcately lanceolate to oblong unequal-sided deep green leaves 4 to 8 inches long on petioles sheathing nearly to the top, a boat-shaped acuminate white spathe 3 inches long, anthers opening by pores at the top, a linear stigma and grey pulpy fruit. He recorded it as not rare in the low country from Singapore to Kedah, extending to Java, under the native names Akar Lubang Alah and Akar Ular, the snake climber, with a decoction of the stem used for rheumatism. Two points of nomenclature follow from those accounts. Ridley placed the name in Schott's Bonplandia 5: 45 of 1857, where Plants of the World Online and this site follow Miquel's Flora van Nederlandsch Indie 3: 185 of 1856, so the question of which publication carries the name is older than it looks; and in 1925 he listed Scindapsus treubii in the synonymy of this species, a reduction the checklist does not follow and neither does Aroidpedia.¹²,¹³

REFERENCES:

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

2. Flora van Nederlandsch Indië 3: 185 (1856) — protologue.

3. iNaturalist: Scindapsus hederaceus

4. Boyce, Sookchaloem, Hetterscheid, Gusman, Jacobsen, Idei & Nguyen 2012. Acoraceae and Araceae. Flora of Thailand 11(2): 101–325

5. Ahmad Sofiman, Boyce & Chan 2010. Studies on Monstereae (Araceae) of Peninsular Malaysia III: Scindapsus lucens, a new record for Malaysia, and a key to Peninsular Malaysian Scindapsus. Gardens' Bulletin Singapore 62(1): 9–15

6. Alderwerelt van Rosenburgh 1920. New or noteworthy Malayan Araceae I. Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg sér. 3, 1: 359–389

7. Engler & Krause 1908. Araceae-Monsteroideae. Das Pflanzenreich IV.23B (Heft 37): 4–139

8. Hooker 1893. Scindapsus. The Flora of British India 6: 541–543

9. Ridley 1905. The aroids of Borneo. Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 44: 169–188

10. Hotta 1966. Notes on Bornean plants I. Acta Phytotaxonomica et Geobotanica 22(1–2): 1–10

11. Mayo, Bogner & Boyce 1997. The Genera of Araceae. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew