SCINDAPSUS LUCENS
PROTOLOGUE: Scindapsus lucens , published in Kew Bulletin 49: 789 (1994).
Scindapsus lucens Bogner & P.C.Boyce, sp. nov. A Scindapso picto laminis foliorum nitentibus bullatis cinerascentibus usque pallide viridibus gynoeciis magis depressis differt. Type: Origin unknown; cultivated in Munich Botanical Garden, Bogner 2113 (holotype M; isotypes B, K (spirit)).
DISTRIBUTION: Malaya to W. Sumatera: Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra.
DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Malaysia: Johor, Melaka, Negeri Sembilan, Pahang Indonesia: North Sumatra.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Slender, sparsely branched trunk climber to ca 4 m; primary axis sterile, physiognomically monopodial, comprising superposed sympodia; lateral branches fertile, rather few and short in wild plants, producing sub-terminal continuation shoots after flowering. Stem up to 4 mm diam., terete, epidermis markedly verruculate, glossy medium-green, verrucate similarly coloured, internodes of primary axis 3–8 cm long with one or two roots at each node; roots 1–2 mm diam., with grey, spongy epidermis. Leaves of primary axis rather distant, very regularly arranged, appressed to the substrate, those of lateral branches somewhat densely grouped; petiole terete, adaxial surface slightly canaliculate, 3–5.5 cm × 2–3 mm, smooth, greyish to light green; pulvinate apically, pulvinus 1–1.5 cm, usually visible only on older leaves when the blade has moved its position relative to light; petiolar sheath 2–5 cm, almost reaching pulvinus; leaf blade 7–14 × 5–9.5 cm, cordiforme, conspicuously bullate, coriaceous, base cordate, posterior lobes sometimes overlapping, apex cuspidate to acuminate, margin entire, narrowly hyaline, lamina adaxially glossy greyish to jade green with the raised parts of bullae often paler, or in green forms tinged grey, paler and glossy abaxially; primary lateral veins 5–7 on each side of the middle vein, ascending towards apex; interprimary veins barely less prominent; secondary and tertiary venation reticulate, much less conspicuous.⁴
INFLORESCENCE:
Inflorescence solitary on the tips of lateral branches: peduncle 5 cm × 4 mm diam., terete, green; subtending cataphyll with very small lamina, ca 1–2 cm × 5 mm, otherwise resembling petiole; spathe caducous during male anthesis, 5 × 1.5 cm, coriaceous, cuspidate, exceeding spadix, somewhat constricted above spadix apex and thence rostrate, very pale yellow, apical rostrum ca 7 mm long, pale green prior to anthesis, all except the very tip becoming same colour as spathe during anthesis; spadix ca 2.7 × 1 cm diam., oblong-ellipsoid, fusiform, pale yellow, shortly stipitate, stipe ca 2 mm long. Flowers bisexual, naked, truncate; gynoecium rhombohexagonal in plan view, 3.5–4.2 × ca 2 mm; stylar region broader than ovary, ca 1 mm thick, pale yellow; stigma longitudinal-linear, 1–1.8 mm long, brown; ovary ca 3 mm diam., unilocular, locule globular, ca 1.2 mm diam.; ovule solitary, ca 1 mm long, funicle short, placentation basal; stamens shorter than gynoecium, not extending markedly at pistillate anthesis; filaments flat, ca 1 × 1–1.2 mm; thecae ellipsoid, ca 0.8 × 0.5 mm, opening by a subapical slit. Infructescence unknown.⁴
ECOLOGY:
Found in the drier facies of perhumid, shady lowland peat forest, less often in lowland mixed dipterocarp forest as at Pasoh Forest Reserve and the Krau Wildlife Reserve, at 20–125 m.⁴ altitude: 20–125 m
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin lucens, "shining," for the glossy leaf blades that Bogner and Boyce set against the dull blades of Scindapsus pictus.²
NOTES:
1. Differs from Scindapsus pictus in the shining, bullate, greyish to pale green leaf blades and the more depressed gynoecia. Juvenile plants of Scindapsus lucens have glossy, bullate, greyish to light green leaf blades, whereas Scindapsus pictus has leaves with a crystalline texture and a smooth, dull grey-green blade variously marked with jagged silver-grey blotches; flowering plants of Scindapsus lucens have cordate leaves with prominent posterior lobes, while Scindapsus pictus has falcate leaves with little or no posterior lobe development. The two have similar inflorescences, but in Scindapsus lucens the gynoecia are considerably more depressed.²
2. The species was described from plants of unknown origin cultivated in Munich and at Kew, with a chromosome count of 2n = 60, and Bogner and Boyce predicted that its native range would lie within that of Scindapsus pictus. A note added in proof reported the first wild collection: Sumatra Utara, Tapanuli district, Aek Syah village about 25 km north of Sipirok, in open secondary forest in an old abandoned rubber plantation on limestone bedrock at about 900 m, Hetterscheid s.n. (K, L), 24 August 1993.²
3. Despite the complete absence of herbarium specimens from Peninsular Malaysia, fieldwork in 2010 found Scindapsus lucens widespread in Johor, Melaka, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang, where it appears to be more abundant than Scindapsus pictus, the species it most resembles; the new collections showed the leaf colour to be more variable than first reported, from pale grey as in the type clone to an unusual jade green, and the stems to be markedly verruculose with the older portions remaining green. Ahmad Sofiman, Boyce and Chan judged it a far more attractive plant than Scindapsus pictus for horticulture, with a compact habit and no heteroblasty, so that the attractive juvenile stage is retained into adulthood, and proposed mass propagation by tissue culture to forestall over-collection.⁴
STORY:
STORY TITLE: Named in a greenhouse, found in the wild by accident
When Josef Bogner and Peter Boyce described Scindapsus lucens in 1994, nobody knew where it came from. The type was a plant cultivated in the Munich Botanical Garden, with duplicates at Kew, and the authors admitted that they knew nothing of its original habitat; they judged it so distinctive, and so promising as a houseplant, that it deserved a name anyway. Its closest relative was plainly Scindapsus pictus, from which its glossy, bullate, grayish to light green juvenile leaves and its more depressed gynoecia set it apart, and they guessed that its home lay somewhere in the range of that species, from southern Thailand through Borneo to the Philippines. A chromosome count made in Copenhagen gave 2n = 60. Then, as the paper was in proof, Wilbert Hetterscheid found it growing wild in northern Sumatra, in open secondary forest on limestone in an abandoned rubber plantation about 25 km north of Sipirok, at about 900 m.²
Sixteen years later the species turned up again, this time in a country where no herbarium had a single specimen of it. Ahmad Sofiman Othman, Boyce and Chan Lai Keng reported in 2010 that a search of every major herbarium in Peninsular Malaysia, and of the Malaysian and Indonesian holdings at Kew, Leiden and Singapore, had produced nothing, and that a series of field trips in April and May 2010 had then found Scindapsus lucens widespread in Johor, Melaka, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang, in the drier parts of shady lowland peat forest and sometimes in mixed dipterocarp forest between 20 and 125 m. It appeared to be more abundant there than Scindapsus pictus, a species that fills herbaria. The new collections showed that the leaf color runs from the pale gray of the type clone to an unusual jade green, and that the stems are markedly warty and stay green with age.⁴
The authors made a case for the plant as a Malaysian horticultural product. Scindapsus pictus is produced in tens of millions for the trade, but it is heteroblastic, and growers must prune it constantly to hold the juvenile leaf form that sells; Scindapsus lucens keeps its attractive juvenile leaves into adulthood and has a far more compact habit. Because a plant of that appeal invites over-collection, they proposed mass propagation from shoot cultures or somatic embryos to supply the market and protect the wild populations.⁴
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Scindapsus lucens
2. Kew Bulletin 49: 789 (1994) — protologue.
3. iNaturalist: Scindapsus lucens
Additional photos by Patrick Blanc
Additional photos by David Scherberich
Additional photos from iNaturalist by mercury9nine, surinkumar, mdoliveira, Gavin and Merlijn Wagner