SCINDAPSUS TREUBII
PROTOLOGUE: Scindapsus treubii , published in Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie 25: 13 (1898). The protologue is reproduced below.
SYNONYMS:
HETEROTYPIC SYNONYMS: Pothos enderianus N.E.Br.
DISTRIBUTION: Pen. Malaysia, NW. Borneo, Jawa: Borneo, Java, Peninsular Malaysia.
DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Malaysia: Perak iNaturalist: Sarawak.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Small to large, moderately robust lianes. Juvenile and pre-adult stems with the leaves arranged in an almost overlapping pattern; adult stems with leaves distichously arranged; Stem smooth, terete. Leaves many; petiole short, petiolar sheath persistent; leaf blade narrowly elliptic to very narrowly falcate oblanceolate (juvenile and pre-adult), to oblique-elliptic (adult), concolorous deep green, although juvenile plants often with the leaf blades grey-banded; primary lateral veins hardly differentiated, pinnate, running into marginal vein.⁴
INFLORESCENCE:
Inflorescence solitary; peduncle shorter than petiole, ca. 2–3 cm long; spathe boat-shaped, 3.5–6 cm long, rather thickly (2–3 mm) leathery, gaping slightly, yellow; spadix cylindric, narrowly ellipsoid, shorter than spathe, 3–4.5 cm long, ca. 7 mm diam., white; flowers bisexual, perigone absent; pistillate flowers, ovary short, compressed; stamens 4, free. Infructescence a monsterocarp ca. 10 cm long × 2.5 cm wide, pale grey-green, somewhat glaucous, stylar plates sloughing at maturity to reveal the pale yellow pulp cavity.⁴
ECOLOGY:
Found in well drained perhumid to everwet broadleaf forest at low to mid elevations.⁴
ETYMOLOGY:
Honors Melchior Treub (1851–1910), director of the Buitenzorg (Bogor) Botanic Garden, from which Engler received the plant in 1897.²
NOTES:
1. Translated from protologue: Climbing and rooting, the internodes shorter than the petioles; petiole a fifth to a sixth as long as the blade, broadly sheathed; blade very thick, oblique, lanceolate, acute, strongly unequal-sided, one side wider below and the other above, with numerous primary lateral veins ascending at a very acute angle and prominent only when dry; peduncle short; spathe very thick, ovoid, shortly acuminate; spadix sessile, cylindric; filaments of the stamens half as long as the ovate anthers; pistils irregularly prismatic, the slightly dilated apex pitted, with a minute oval stigma. Engler added that this interesting species is somewhat related to Scindapsus pictus but completely distinct by the sharply lanceolate leaves, which in shape and size agree extraordinarily closely with Rhaphidophora sylvestris.²
2. Engler's measurements: internodes of the branchlets about 2–3 cm long and 5 mm thick; petiole 2–3 cm long and 6–7 mm wide; blade 15–20 cm long and 2.5–4 cm wide, one side nearly twice as wide as the other; peduncles about 2–3 cm long; spathe 3.5–6 cm long, 2–3 mm thick and 2–3 cm wide when open; spadix 3–4.5 cm long and 7 mm thick; filaments 0.5 mm and anthers 1 mm long; pistils 2 mm long and wide.²
3. Wong gives the range as Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, Java and Borneo and cites Pothos enderianus N.E.Br. of 1884 as a synonym; her key separates the species from Scindapsus pictus by the leaf blade never scintillating and never with jagged silver blotches, although occasionally grey-banded, and from Scindapsus coriaceus and Rhaphidophora lobbii by the very strongly unequal blade, the petiole less than a fifth as long as the blade and the persistent petiolar sheath.⁴
4. In the key to the Peninsular Malaysian species Scindapsus treubii is the liane with smooth stems and sub-succulent, markedly oblique, oblong-lanceolate blades of a uniform deep green, less often with jagged grey markings in juvenile plants; the authors note that it has been revealed by fieldwork since Ridley as a widespread species from Sumatra to Borneo, and they credit Ridley's accounts with five species, although his Flora of 1925 numbers six.⁵,⁷
5. Engler and Krause redescribed the species with figure 33 from smooth angular branchlets 5–6 mm thick, petioles 2–4 cm long sheathed to the base of the blade, thickly leathery obliquely lanceolate blades 15–20 cm long and 2.5–4 cm wide with one side nearly twice as wide as the other, a peduncle 2–3 cm long, a very thickly fleshy yellow oblong spathe 4–6.5 cm long, a sessile cylindric spadix 3–4.5 cm long and 7 mm thick, and irregularly prismatic pistils 2 mm long with a minute oval stigma; they cited it from Kuala Woh in Perak, growing wild in abundance in the Singapore Botanic Gardens, and cultivated in the Bogor garden, and noted that it resembles Scindapsus pictus but is certainly distinct by the obliquely lanceolate blade and differs from Scindapsus hederaceus by the short petiole.⁶
6. Ridley did not accept the species. In the Flora of 1925 he listed Scindapsus treubii in the synonymy of Scindapsus hederaceus, which is why it stands outside the Peninsular species of his account. Plants of the World Online keeps the two apart and Aroidpedia follows the checklist, under the standing rule that a very old reduction no later worker has tested does not displace the current checklist; the modern keys separate them without difficulty, this species by its sub-succulent, strongly oblique blades of uniform deep green.⁷
STORY:
STORY TITLE: From Treub's garden to the Singapore Gardens
Engler described Scindapsus treubii in 1898 from a plant that had reached him from the Bogor garden in 1897 under the number 85, and named it for Melchior Treub, the garden's director. He called it an interesting species, somewhat related to Scindapsus pictus but completely distinct by the sharply lanceolate leaves, which in shape and size agreed extraordinarily closely with Rhaphidophora sylvestris; the blade is very thick, oblique, and so unequal-sided that one half is nearly twice as wide as the other. In the monograph of 1908 Engler and Krause cited it from Kuala Woh in Perak and growing wild in abundance in the Singapore Botanic Gardens, and wondered whether the Bogor plant had come from Java.²,⁶
For a century it stayed a rarity of gardens. Ridley treated it in the synonymy of Scindapsus hederaceus in his six-species Malayan flora, and Ahmad Sofiman, Boyce and Chan wrote in 2010 that fieldwork since Ridley had revealed it as a widespread species from Sumatra to Borneo, separated in their key by smooth stems and sub-succulent, markedly oblique, oblong-lanceolate blades of a uniform deep green, less often with jagged gray markings in juvenile plants. Wong Sin Yeng, treating the aroids of the Sarawak peat swamps, describes the juvenile as a near-shingling climber with narrowly elliptic to falcate leaves, often gray-banded, and the adult as a liane with oblique-elliptic blades, a yellow boat-shaped spathe 3.5 to 6 cm long and a white spadix, growing in well drained perhumid forest at low to mid elevations; she lists among its synonyms a plant that had been sold as Pothos enderianus since 1884.⁵,⁴
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Scindapsus treubii
2. Engler 1898. Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Araceae VII. Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie 25: 13 — protologue.
3. iNaturalist: Scindapsus treubii
6. Engler & Krause 1908. Araceae-Monsteroideae. Das Pflanzenreich IV.23B (Heft 37): 4–139
7. Ridley 1925. Araceae. The Flora of the Malay Peninsula 5: 84–131
Additional photo by David Scherberich
Additional photo by Peter C. Boyce, from the International Aroid Society
Additional photos from iNaturalist by sgbeetlenut, Brendan McIntyre, Syifa Auliani, Oliver Ingold and njweess