SCINDAPSUS ROSEUS
PROTOLOGUE: Scindapsus roseus , published in Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg ser. 3, 4: 225 (1922). The protologue is reproduced below.
DISTRIBUTION: Sumatera: Sumatra.
DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Indonesia: West Sumatra.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Translated from protologue: Stem climbing, the internodes about 4 cm long and 2 mm thick. Petiole 30–40 cm long, sheathed nearly up to the geniculum, which is about 2 cm long, or a little less; sheath leathery, gradually narrowed from the base toward the apex, with a deciduous scarious margin; blade rather thick when dry, leathery, ovate- or obovate-oblong, 20–50 × 15–18 cm, inconspicuously unequal-sided, apex abruptly and very shortly acuminate, base oblique and unequal-sided, one side slightly cordate-emarginate and the other rounded or broadly rounded-cuneate; midrib slightly falcately curved; primary veins 15–20 on each side, the basal ones more or less horizontal, the upper ones erect-spreading and the middle ones widely spreading, impressed above, conspicuously prominent beneath, slender toward the apex, curved upward and not reaching the margin of the blade; the remaining veins progressively finer, the tertiary and quaternary ones scarcely prominent.²
INFLORESCENCE:
Translated from protologue: Peduncle about 6 cm long. Spathe elongate-conoid-ovoid, about 17 cm long, very pale orange in life, gradually sharpened toward the apex. Spadix very shortly stipitate, conoid-cylindric, about 14 cm long and 2 cm thick, pink in life, gradually tapered toward the subacute apex; ovaries about 6 mm high, compressed at the base, at the apex about 3 mm thick, flat and about 6-angled, slightly warty-wrinkled when dry; the uppermost ovaries sterile, irregularly angled at the apex; style very short, often sunk in a central hollow; stigma relatively broad, round or nearly so, orange, flattened at the apex.²
ECOLOGY:
Found in forest on Mount Merapi, West Sumatra, at 1200 m.² altitude: 1200 m
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin roseus, "rose-colored," for the spadix, which Alderwerelt recorded as pink in the living plant.²
NOTES:
1. Boyce singles out Scindapsus roseus, with Scindapsus splendidus and the Bornean Scindapsus latifolius, as very similar in appearance to the entire-leaved species of Epipremnum; apart from field experience, only the inflorescences or semi-mature infructescences separate them, Scindapsus having fruits with a solitary curved seed.³
2. Boyce and Wong list the species 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.⁴
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Scindapsus roseus
2. Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg, ser. 3, 4: 225 (1922) — protologue.
4. Boyce & Wong 2015. Compendium Genera Aracearum Malesianum. Aroideana 38E(1): 40–177