SCINDAPSUS MAMILLIFER

PROTOLOGUE: Scindapsus mamillifer , published in Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg ser. 3, 1: 387 (1920). The protologue is reproduced below.

DISTRIBUTION: Borneo: Borneo.

SPECIES DESCRIPTION:

Translated from protologue: Petiole rather slender, about 75–100 cm long, channeled above from the base to the apex, sheathed beyond the middle, the sheath very broad at the base and gradually narrowed toward the apex, soon drying out and tearing; geniculum somewhat swollen, 3–4 cm long; blade leathery, oblong, about 70–80 × 23–30 cm, slightly unequal-sided, very shortly acuminate with an apiculate tip, base obliquely and unequally cordate-emarginate or cordate on one side and rounded on the other; midrib folded and channeled above in life; primary veins spreading, arching upward toward the apex, with 8–14 finer secondary, tertiary and quaternary veins between them parallel to the primaries.²

INFLORESCENCE:

Translated from protologue: Peduncle thick, about 10 cm long. Spathe elongate-boat-shaped, about 30 cm long and 6 cm wide, yellowish, leathery, apiculate. Spadix subsessile, conoid-cylindric, about 25 cm long and 3.5 cm thick, slightly tapered at both ends, obtuse, pale greenish yellow; ovaries about 1 cm long, truncate at the apex, 4–6-angled, about 3 mm thick, with a raised margin; style proportionately large, somewhat compressed and nipple-shaped; stigma minute, shortly linear, superficial or sunken at the apex of the style.²

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin mamilla, "nipple," and-fer, "bearing," for the large, somewhat compressed, nipple-shaped style that Alderwerelt described.²

NOTES:

1. Alderwerelt separated this plant from the Bogor garden material that Engler and Krause had described as Rhaphidophora glaucescens, two absolutely different species having climbed the same tree; it is the plant with the slender petiole 75–100 cm long, the oblong blade cordate at the base and the large nipple-shaped style, and its companion became Scindapsus glaucescens.²

2. Alderwerelt spelled the epithet mamilliferus; Plants of the World Online accepts the corrected form mamillifer. The stated origin is simply Borneo.²

3. Boyce and Wong list the species, as Scindapsus mamilliferus, 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: The other plant on the tree

Scindapsus mamillifer owes its existence as a species to a mistake in a botanic garden. Engler and Krause's Rhaphidophora glaucescens of 1908 was founded on sterile material cultivated at Buitenzorg under the number Z 58, and when Alderwerelt examined the plants in 1920 he found that two absolutely different species had climbed the same tree and been described as one. He kept the name glaucescens, transferred to Scindapsus, for the plant with the stout petiole and the rounded leaf base, and described the second as Scindapsus mamilliferus: a slender petiole 75 to 100 cm long channeled from base to apex, an oblong blade 70 to 80 cm long and cordate at least on one side, a leathery yellowish boat-shaped spathe about 30 cm long, and a proportionately large, somewhat compressed, nipple-shaped style with a minute stigma at its tip.²

The stated origin is Borneo and nothing more. Plants of the World Online accepts the name in the corrected form mamillifer, and the Compendium of Malesian aroid genera lists it, as Scindapsus mamilliferus, among the species that have had no treatment since the monograph of 1908.³

REFERENCES:

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

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

Photo of the surviving living-type plant at the Bogor Botanic Gardens, from Yuzammi 2018