SCINDAPSUS JAVANICUS
PROTOLOGUE: Scindapsus javanicus , published in Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg ser. 3, 1: 388 (1920). The protologue is reproduced below.
DISTRIBUTION: Jawa: Java.
DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Indonesia: West Java.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Translated from protologue: Internodes of the branches about 1 cm long. Petiole about 15–27.5 cm long, often sheathed nearly up to the geniculum, which is 1–2 cm long; sheath gradually narrowed from a broad base toward the apex, with a proportionately broad scarious margin; blade leathery, falcate-lanceolate, about 25–42 × 6–11 cm, broadest at or below the middle, slightly unequal-sided with one side up to 1¼ times as wide as the other, apex gradually acuminate, base unequally rounded-cuneate; midrib arched; veins erect-spreading, numerous, rather crowded, curved inward toward the apex and joined into an intramarginal collective vein, the primary veins regularly alternating with finer secondary ones.²
INFLORESCENCE:
Translated from protologue: Peduncle short, about 3 cm long. Spathe boat-shaped, gaping, about 9–10 cm long, acuminate, soon drying out. Spadix sessile, cylindric, up to about 9 cm long and 2 cm thick, slightly tapered toward the obtuse apex; ovaries about 6 mm long, truncate at the apex, 4–6-angled, about 3 mm thick, slightly depressed in the middle; stigma rather large, orbicular, slightly impressed, crowning a very short and narrower style.²
ECOLOGY:
Found in forest at 1000 m in the Preanger Regencies of West Java, at Tjibeber and Tjadas Malang.² altitude: 1000 m
ETYMOLOGY:
Of Java, where Backer and Bakhuizen van den Brink collected the type material in forest in the Preanger Regencies.²
NOTES:
1. Alderwerelt considered Scindapsus javanicus surely very nearly related to Scindapsus marantifolius and perhaps only a narrow-leaved form of it, distinguished by the lanceolate blade about four times as long as broad (25–42 × 6–11 cm), broadest at or a little below the middle, the base as a rule obliquely rounded-cuneate, and by the absence, in the material at hand, of extraordinarily thickened primary veins and elongated styles; in the living plant the spathe is yellow, soon dries and turns black, and falls, and the spadix is yellow or pale orange.³
2. 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.⁴
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Scindapsus javanicus
2. Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg, ser. 3, 1: 388 (1920) — protologue.
4. Boyce & Wong 2015. Compendium Genera Aracearum Malesianum. Aroideana 38E(1): 40–177