SCINDAPSUS LONGIPES
PROTOLOGUE: Scindapsus longipes , published in Bullettino della Reale Società Toscana di Orticultura 4: 270 (1879).
DISTRIBUTION: Borneo (Brunei, Sarawak): Borneo, Brunei, Sarawak.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Translated from Engler & Krause (1908): Stem terete, about 1 cm thick, with internodes 1.5–2 cm long. Petiole up to 20 cm long, with a subleathery, persistent sheath about 8 mm wide on each side below, strongly narrowed upward from the middle and not reaching the short, thickish geniculum, which is 6 mm long and 2–2.5 mm thick; blade thinly leathery, obliquely oblong or obliquely ovate-oblong, apex acuminate, base obtuse, 12–15 cm long and 7–8 cm wide in the lower third, strongly unequal-sided with one side 2–3 cm and the other 4–5 cm wide, the numerous subequal lateral veins leaving the midrib at an angle of about 40° and slightly arched toward the margin.³
INFLORESCENCE:
Translated from Engler & Krause (1908): Peduncle about 2 cm long and 1 cm thick. Spathe oblong-ovate, 10 cm long and nearly 3 cm wide. Spadix sessile, cylindric, slightly tapered at both ends, about 8 cm long and 1.2 cm thick. Pistils prismatic, crowned by a sessile orbicular stigma. Berries 5.5 mm long and 1.5 mm thick. Seed nearly 4 mm long and 1.5 mm thick, whitish.³
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin longus, "long," and pes, "foot," for the petiole 1.5–2 times as long as the blade, the character by which Engler keyed the species.⁴
NOTES:
1. The protologue in the Bullettino della Reale Società Toscana di Orticultura for 1879 names Scindapsus longipes as no. 26 on pages 270–271; Engler's redescription of 1882 in Malesia, with figures 11–13 of plate XXI, and the 1908 monograph account supplement it here.²
2. Known to the monograph only from Beccari's Sarawak gathering in Florence; it is keyed among the species whose petiole is sheathed beyond the middle and is 1.5 times as long as the blade, beside Scindapsus borneensis, from which the obliquely oblong rather than lanceolate blade separates it.³
3. Engler distinguished Scindapsus longipes in his conspectus by the woody petiole 1.5–2 times as long as the strongly unequal-sided, obliquely ovate or ovate-oblong blade, and figured it in figures 11–13 of plate XXI; his measurements are a stem about 1 cm thick, a petiole up to 20 cm long, a blade 12–15 cm long and 7–8 cm wide with one side 2–3 cm and the other 4–5 cm wide, a peduncle 2 cm long, a spathe 10 cm long, a spadix 8 cm long tapered at both ends, and whitish seeds nearly 4 mm long.⁴
4. Ridley's enumeration of the aroids of Borneo lists the species only from Beccari's Sarawak collection.⁵
5. Boyce found that this species, unlike Scindapsus latifolius, does not shed needle-like trichosclereids from disintegrating petiolar sheaths, cataphylls and prophylls, and is vegetatively fairly typical of the genus.⁶
6. Kartini, Siva Rohgini and Boyce list Scindapsus longipes among the seven described species of the Scindapsus Coriaceus Complex, a pre-eminently Bornean group of thick-leaved, smooth-stemmed, scandent to low-climbing plants of exposed kerangas with solitary inflorescences and a thick leathery spathe.⁷
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Scindapsus longipes
2. Bullettino della Reale Società Toscana di Orticultura 4: 270 (1879) — protologue.
3. Engler & Krause 1908. Araceae-Monsteroideae. Das Pflanzenreich IV.23B (Heft 37): 4–139
4. Engler 1882. Aracee della Malesia e della Papuasia raccolte da O. Beccari. Malesia 1: 259–302