SCINDAPSUS SPLENDIDUS
PROTOLOGUE: Scindapsus splendidus , published in Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg ser. 3, 4: 226 (1922). The protologue is reproduced below.
DISTRIBUTION: Sumatera: Sumatra.
DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Indonesia: North Sumatra Malaysia: Sarawak.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Translated from protologue: A robust plant climbing to about 8 m high, the stem about 8 cm thick. Petiole up to 90–100 cm long, sheathed up to the geniculum, which is 6–8 cm long; blade leathery when dry, relatively thick, subovate-oblong, up to 90–100 × 45–50 cm, apex rather obtuse and scarcely acute, base unequal-sided with one side broadly subcordate-emarginate and the other broadly rounded or very broadly rounded-cuneate; primary veins numerous, up to 30–40 on each side, the upper ones suberect and the basal ones becoming horizontal, thick, arched upward at the apex, strongly prominent beneath and impressed above; secondary veins resembling now the primary and now the tertiary veins; tertiary and quaternary veins progressively very fine.²
INFLORESCENCE:
Translated from protologue: Peduncle about 12.5 cm long. Spathe elongate-conoid-ovoid, 20–25 cm long, at first pale yellowish green, acute, persistent. Spadix very shortly stipitate, elongate-conoid-cylindric, up to 17.5–20 cm long, 2–2.5 cm thick in flower and up to 3.5 cm thick in fruit, obtuse; ovaries compressed at the base, 6-angled at the apex, pale blue-green; style conoid, nearly 2 mm high, pale brown; stigma thickly cushion-shaped, as wide as the apex of the style, round or nearly so; berries similar to the ovaries but a little larger; seed erect, elongate-obovate, with a lateral funicle.²
ECOLOGY:
Found in primeval and secondary forest at Sibolangit in the Deli region of North Sumatra, at 500 m.² altitude: 500 m
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin splendidus, "splendid" or "magnificent," presumably for the size of the plant, with blades up to a meter long on petioles as long again; Alderwerelt did not explain the name.²
NOTES:
1. Hotta added the species, previously known only from Sumatra, to the flora of Borneo on the strength of Sarawak collections, and placed his new Scindapsus latifolius closest to it.³
2. Boyce singles out Scindapsus splendidus, with Scindapsus roseus 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.⁴
3. 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.⁵
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Scindapsus splendidus
2. Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg ser. 3, 4: 226 (1922) — protologue.
3. Hotta 1966. Notes on Bornean plants I. Acta Phytotaxonomica et Geobotanica 22(1–2): 1–10
5. 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