SCINDAPSUS MARANTIFOLIUS
PROTOLOGUE: Scindapsus marantifolius , published in Flora van Nederlandsch Indië 3: 187 (1856). The protologue is reproduced below.
SYNONYMS:
HOMOTYPIC SYNONYMS: Cuscuaria marantifolia (Miq.) Schott
DISTRIBUTION: Jawa: Java.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Translated from protologue: Climbing, the branches thick; petioles 5–9 inches long, winged for two-thirds to three-quarters of their length (the sheath clasping at the base, its margins thinned and scarious, meeting together), grooved on the upper side above, slightly swollen at the apex; leaves oblong from a rounded base, shortly and sharply apiculate, equal-sided or slightly unequal-sided, leathery, shining, cross-striped by very dense, equal, arching-spreading veins from a midrib grooved above and prominent beneath, 6–13 inches long and 2½–3½ inches wide.²
INFLORESCENCE:
Translated from protologue: Peduncles axillary, solitary, 1½–3 inches long; spathe convolute, cylindric-conical, shortly beaked, 4–5 inches long; spadix sessile, a little shorter; ovaries peltate-obpyramidal, dilated at the apex, the style very short and thick, the stigma orbicular, concave and viscous; stamens (still enclosed) with short, dilated filaments.²
ETYMOLOGY:
With leaves like Maranta, the prayer plants; Miquel likened the plant to Aglaonema marantifolium, whose epithet has the same sense, and distinguished it by the equal leaf veins.²
NOTES:
1. Similar to Aglaonema marantifolium, but distinguishable even when sterile by the leaf veins all being equal.²
2. Miquel made the species the type of his subgenus Marantophyllum, characterized by the thick leathery spathe, the conical-cylindric spadix and the peltate ovaries with an orbicular or suborbicular smooth concave stigma on a very short thick style; the only locality given is Java. Engler and Krause sank the name under Scindapsus cuscuaria in 1908, and Alderwerelt reinstated it in 1920.²
3. Alderwerelt reinstated Miquel's species, which Engler and Krause had sunk into Scindapsus cuscuaria, distinguishing it by the primary veins similar to the secondary ones and not stout in the lower half, and by the stigma crowning a short but very distinct conical style, so that the spadix looks rough and rasp-like; Schott's plate 80 in the Genera Aroidearum, published as Cuscuaria marantifolia, illustrates it.³
4. The Javanese plants referable to Scindapsus marantifolius differ, in Alderwerelt's 1922 comparison, from the Amboinese Scindapsus cuscuaria in the petiole with the margin of the sheath scarious, lacerate and deciduous; the leathery, somewhat thicker, oblong-ovate blade about 2.5–3 times as long as broad (to 30–45 × 10–17.5 cm), commonly broadest in the lower half, the base occasionally obliquely and broadly rounded-cuneate; the midrib beneath rather rounded when dry; the veins somewhat less distinct and less prominent but the occasionally thickened primaries much more thickened in the lower half; the spadix at length about 10 cm long; and the styles varying from very short to distinctly conically elongated, as in Schott's plate 80, with a round or occasionally suboblong stigma. The living plant has a yellow spadix.⁴
5. The name has been sunk once and restored once. Engler and Krause placed it in the synonymy of Scindapsus cuscuaria in 1908; Alderwerelt reinstated it in 1920 and confirmed the separation in 1922 after re-examining the material on which Engler had named the Buitenzorg plants. Plants of the World Online accepts both names and so does Aroidpedia, under the standing rule that a very old reduction no later worker has tested does not displace the current checklist.³,⁴
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Scindapsus marantifolius
2. Flora van Nederlandsch Indië 3: 187 (1856) — protologue.