SCINDAPSUS OFFICINALIS
PROTOLOGUE: Scindapsus officinalis , published in Meletemata Botanica 21 (1832). The protologue is reproduced below.
SYNONYMS:
HOMOTYPIC SYNONYMS: Monstera officinalis (Roxb.) Schott; Pothos officinalis Roxb.
HETEROTYPIC SYNONYMS: Scindapsus annamicus Gagnep.
OTHER NAMES: Phlu chang, พลูช้าง (Thai, Chiang Mai); hi khwai, หีควาย (Thai, Bangkok); khruea ngu khiao, เครืองูเขียว (Thai, Nong Khai); Gaj-pipal (Hindustani)
DISTRIBUTION: Indian Subcontinent to Indo-China: Andaman Islands, Assam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, East Himalaya, India, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam, West Himalaya.
DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Thailand: Bangkok, Buri Ram, Chaiyaphum, Chiang Mai, Chon Buri, Lampang, Mukdahan, Nong Khai, Ratchaburi, Tak India: Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal Bangladesh: Chittagong, Dhaka Myanmar: Bago iNaturalist: Khon Kaen, Saraburi, Siem Reap.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Medium to large, moderate to rather robust, semipachycaul, homeophyllous secondary hemiepiphyte to 10 m. Stems terete, ca 1.5–2 cm diam., smooth with pale green epidermis when fresh, drying with epidermis orange-brown and flaking easily. Leaves tending to cluster at tips of shoots; petiole prominently winged, 10–17 by 1–3 cm, apical and basal pulvini weakly defined; petiolar sheath very prominent, spreading and wing-like, persistent, briefly ligulate apically; leaf blade ovate-lanceolate to ovate-elliptic, 14–25 by 8–18 cm, slightly oblique, base rounded and very briefly cuneate, usually oblique, apex acute to attenuate, with a prominent apiculate tubule, dull pale to medium green, juvenile leaves occasionally with irregular, jagged, silvery streaks; midrib raised abaxially, slightly sunken adaxially; primary lateral veins pinnate, slightly raised abaxially and adaxially; interprimaries parallel to primaries and only slightly less prominent, very slightly raised abaxially and adaxially; secondary and tertiary venation ± obscure in fresh material, visible as a faint reticulum in dried specimens.⁴
INFLORESCENCE:
Inflorescence solitary, subtended by a fully developed foliage leaf, arising on free lateral and less often adherent shoots; peduncle compressed-cylindrical, 9–14 by 1–1.5 cm; spathe broadly cigar-shaped, 11–16 by 3–5 cm, stoutly long-beaked, thinly stiff-fleshy, dull yellow, paler internally, caducous at pistillate anthesis; spadix cylindrical, 6–11 by 1–2.5 cm, sessile, inserted ± level on peduncle; stylar region mostly longitudinally rhombohexagonal, 4–6 by 2–3 mm, truncate; stigma longitudinally elongated, ca 3 mm. Infructescence stoutly fusiform cylindrical, 12–15 by 2–3 cm, stylar plates each with their edges recurving, somewhat waxy in appearance; stigma longitudinally annulate; fruits yellow when ripe with stylar plates sloughing away to reveal red pulp cavities.⁴
ECOLOGY:
Found in dry deciduous, dry evergreen and dry mixed lowland to hill forest, on granite, sandstone and limestone, to about 600 m.⁴ altitude: 600 m
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin officinalis, "of the apothecary's shop," the epithet given to plants used in medicine; Roxburgh's Pothos officinalis carried the name from Indian medical use, and the Flora of Thailand still records the species as an Ayurvedic medicinal plant.⁴
NOTES:
1. The combination in Scindapsus was made by Schott in 1832 in a list of Roxburgh's Pothos species transferred to his new genus; the description belongs to Roxburgh's Pothos officinalis in the Flora Indica, and Schott's generic diagnosis on the same page defines Scindapsus by the gaping, finally expanded and deciduous spathe, the sessile spadix that is female at the base, the one-celled ovaries with one or two ovules attached at the bottom, and the sessile oblong stigma.²
2. Scindapsus officinalis is immediately recognizable in Thailand by the combination of stem epidermis drying distinctively orange-brown and readily flaking, and the longitudinal-annulate stigma of the fruiting ovary. The Flora of Thailand gives the range as Nepal through north-eastern India (the type locality) and the tropical and subtropical Himalaya to southern Indo-China.⁴
3. Uses: The Flora of Thailand lists it as an Ayurvedic medicinal plant with anti-inflammatory and antihistamine properties.⁴
4. The monograph's account gives flowering branchlets up to 1.5 cm thick, petioles 12–16 cm long with a persistent flattened sheath reaching the short geniculum, thinly leathery obliquely ovate-oblong blades 15–23 cm long and 10–13 cm wide with a long abrupt cusp, a spathe 12–15 cm long, green outside and dull yellow within, with a cusp 1.5–2 cm long, a sessile spadix about as long as the spathe in flower and elongating to 4 cm thick in fruit, tetragonal-prismatic pistils 6–8 mm long with a rather large orbicular stigma, berries about 1 cm long that shed a vertical plate of tissue, and ovate-cordate seeds; figure 30 A–G illustrates it. Specimens are cited from Bengal, Chota Nagpur, Madras, Chittagong, Assam, Upper Burma, the Andaman Islands, where it was common on the coast, Pegu and Prome in Burma, and Cochinchina, with the Hindustani name Gaj-pipal.⁵
5. Hooker's account for British India: branches wrinkled when dry; leaves 5–10 by 2½–6 in., ovate, elliptic-ovate or nearly orbicular, caudate-acuminate, base rounded or slightly cordate, primary nerves distinct; petiole 3–6 in., broadly winged up to the knee; spathe 4–6 in., oblong, subcylindrical, beaked, green without and yellow within; spadix equalling the spathe and elongating in fruit, sometimes a span long; berries few only ripening, fleshy; seed ovate-cordate. He gave the range as the tropical Himalaya from Sikkim eastwards, Bengal, Chittagong, Burma and the Andaman Islands.⁶
6. Bogner and Boyce note that adult Scindapsus officinalis and Scindapsus pictus are remarkably similar, the variegation of Scindapsus pictus sometimes being lost in dried material, but that the two have different gynoecia and are geographically distinct, Scindapsus officinalis being widespread in India, northern Thailand, Myanmar and south-western China.⁷
STORY:
STORY TITLE: Gaj-pipal, the aroid of the apothecary
William Roxburgh named the plant Pothos officinalis for its place in Indian medicine, and when Heinrich Wilhelm Schott founded Scindapsus in 1832 he transferred it there in a bare list of Roxburgh's species, so that the medicinal climber of Bengal became one of the founding members of the genus. Hooker gave its range in 1893 as the tropical Himalaya from Sikkim eastward, Bengal, Chittagong, Burma and the Andaman Islands, and noted that the fruiting spadix is sometimes a span long. Engler and Krause recorded the vernacular name Gaj-pipal and found it common on the coast of the Andamans.²,⁶,⁵
The Flora of Thailand, which carries the modern description, still lists it as an Ayurvedic medicinal plant with anti-inflammatory and antihistamine properties, and gives the field characters that make it immediately recognizable: a stem whose epidermis dries a distinctive orange-brown and flakes away, and a stigma that becomes longitudinally annulate on the fruiting ovary. Thai names differ from province to province, phlu chang in Chiang Mai, hi khwai in Bangkok, khruea ngu khiao in Nong Khai. The species grows in dry deciduous, dry evergreen and dry mixed forest on granite, sandstone and limestone, and its narrow-leaved relative Scindapsus hederaceus, whose stem dries pale brown and keeps its skin, is the plant most easily confused with it.⁴
There is a second look-alike at the other end of the genus. Bogner and Boyce remarked in 1994 that adult Scindapsus officinalis and Scindapsus pictus are remarkably similar once the variegation of the latter has faded in a dried specimen; they differ in their gynoecia and in geography, Scindapsus officinalis being the widespread plant of India, northern Thailand, Myanmar and south-western China.⁷
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Scindapsus officinalis
2. Meletemata Botanica 21 (1832) — protologue.
3. iNaturalist: Scindapsus officinalis
5. Engler & Krause 1908. Araceae-Monsteroideae. Das Pflanzenreich IV.23B (Heft 37): 4–139
6. Hooker 1893. Scindapsus. The Flora of British India 6: 541–543
Additional photos by Patrick Blanc
Additional photos from iNaturalist by Wangworn Sankamethawee, Nyi Nyi Aung, plants_and_pottery, Rajib Maulick, Giovanni Bacaro, Med offr, Stefan C, Nattachote Tungsiri, SAVE Thitiphon, Stephen Manktelow, Bikash Kumar Sahoo, hannarong, lougarou and wannachart_phoopitact
Additional photo from Wikimedia Commons by A. J. T. Johnsingh, WWF-India and NCF
