SCINDAPSUS SCHLECHTERI

PROTOLOGUE: Scindapsus schlechteri , published in Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie 49: 95 (1912). The protologue is reproduced below.

DISTRIBUTION: Papua New Guinea: New Guinea, Papua New Guinea.

DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Papua New Guinea: Madang.

SPECIES DESCRIPTION:

Translated from protologue: Stem climbing, terete, stout, with short internodes. Petiole grooved above, furnished up to the moderately thickened geniculum with a leathery, persistent, rather broad sheath slightly narrowed upward and rounded at the very apex; blade leathery, longer than the petiole, falcate-lanceolate, apex acuminate, base obliquely pointed, unequal-sided with one side nearly twice as wide as the other, the primary lateral veins dense and numerous, leaving the midrib at an acute angle, ascending in an arc toward the margin and distinctly prominent on both surfaces, the secondary veins slightly finer than the primaries. The branch pieces at hand are 5 mm thick when dried, with internodes 1–2 cm long; the petiole measures 7–9 cm including the geniculum of 1–1.2 cm, and the blade is 13–16 cm long and 4–4.5 cm wide.²

INFLORESCENCE:

Translated from protologue: Peduncle short and stout, about 2 cm long. Spathe fleshy, oblong, acuminate, 8 cm long, black when dried. Spadix sessile, cylindric, obtuse, shorter than the spathe by the length of its acumen, 6 cm long and 1.5 cm thick. Pistils prismatic, the apex mostly hexagonal, crowned by a small orbicular stigma; ovaries 2.5–3 mm long.²

ECOLOGY:

Found on trees in the forests of the Kani Range in north-eastern New Guinea, at about 1000 m.² altitude: 1000 m

ETYMOLOGY:

Honors Rudolf Schlechter (1872–1925), the German botanist who collected the type in the Kani Range of north-eastern New Guinea in June 1908.²

NOTES:

1. 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.³

REFERENCES:

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

2. Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie 49: 95 (1912) — protologue.

3. Boyce & Wong 2015. Compendium Genera Aracearum Malesianum. Aroideana 38E(1): 40–177