SYNGONIUM AURITUM
PROTOLOGUE: Syngonium auritum , published in Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst, Literatur, Theater und Mode 1829(3): 780 (1829).
Syngonium auritum. (Schott.) Geöhrtblättrige Vereinfrucht. Aus Westindien. Klimmender Parasit der Aroideae. Bey Syngonium sind alle einfächerigen und einsamigen Eyerstöcke zusammengewachsen. Das Eychen ist im Grunde des Faches befestigt. Die Staubgefäße sind zu 4–5 an einander gewachsen, jedoch auf solche Weise, daß die Fächer der einzelnen Anthere an den weit hervorspringenden Kanten gegenüberstehend bleiben. Ovaria unilocularia uniovulata omnia concreta. Ovulum fundo affixum. Stamina 4–5 connata antherarum loculis oppositis. Die einzige bis jetzt bekannte Art ist das Caladium auritum. (Ventenat.)
SYNONYMS:
HOMOTYPIC SYNONYMS: Arum auritum L.; Caladium auritum (L.) Vent.
HETEROTYPIC SYNONYMS: Syngonium plumieri Schott
DISTRIBUTION: Greater Antilles: Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica.
DISTRIBUTION NOTE: iNaturalist: Portland, Saint Thomas.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Juvenile plants with stems scandent; blades ovate, acute at the apex, sagittate to hastate at the base. Adult stems hemiepiphytic, somewhat scandent, slightly glaucous, 1.5–2.0 cm diam.; internodes 4–9 cm long, with one large feeding root and several clasping roots per node. Leaves with petioles 15–48 cm long, broadly sheathed usually 4/5 their length (rarely to 2/3); blades usually trisect or sub-5-pedatisect, rarely 5-pedatisect, the lobes confluent, the median lobe 10–30 cm long, 6–20 cm wide, broadly elliptic, abruptly acuminate at the apex, the base obtuse, the tissue continuous with the lateral lobes, the first pair of lateral lobes ovate to elliptic, 6–21 cm long, 3–11 cm wide, acute at the apex, strongly inequilateral, usually conspicuously auriculate on the outer side at the base, the auricle sometimes free, then 4–10 cm long, to ca. 4 cm wide, the upper surface semiglossy, medium green, the lower surface paler; primary lateral veins mostly 5–7 per side, joining the midrib at 20–45° angle.⁴
INFLORESCENCE:
Inflorescences to 3 per axil; peduncle 7–13 cm long; spathe 16.2–26.5 cm; spathe tube cylindroid, 4.2–8.5 cm long, 1.0–1.9 cm diam., dark green outside, green inside with a suffusion of bronzy red at the base; spathe blade ovate in outline when opened, mucronate at the apex, conspicuously constricted at base, 12–18 cm long, 7–10 cm wide (flattened), creamy white on both sides, sometimes greenish white on the outside and creamy white tinged faintly with violet-purple to dark purplish reddish within; spadix 6.9–14.0 cm long, extending to ½ as long as the spathe blade; pistillate portion of the spadix medium yellow-green, 3.4–4.8 cm long, 9–12 mm diam., the flowers mostly rhombic to 5- or 6-sided, the stigma discoid, dark yellowish green; staminate portion of the spadix 3.5–9.2 cm long, rounded at the apex, slightly attenuate toward the apex, the sterile staminate section 7–17 mm long, creamy white to yellowish, oblong, slightly attenuate at the apex, the sterile staminate flowers larger and more irregular than the fertile staminate flowers, the fertile staminate flowers 2–5 (usually 4), the synandrium retuse at apex, the stamens fused together only on the inner side. Infructescence pendent; syncarp 7.0–7.8 cm long, 1.4–2.0 cm diam. According to Birdsey (1955) the species may flower all year, but no particular individual is in flower continuously.⁴
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin auritus, "eared," referring to the ear-like basal lobes (auricles) of the leaf. The name was coined by Linnaeus as Arum auritum in 1759 and transferred to Syngonium by Schott in 1829, when he founded the genus on this species.⁴
NOTES:
1. It is the type species for the genus. The species can be recognized by its elongate spathe tube and the spathe blade which is up to twice as long as the staminate part of the spadix. An unnumbered Hitchcock collection at MO (MO-3271560) from Lucea, Jamaica, is anomalous in having the median lobe with a conspicuously sinuate margin. The species frequently has weakly irregular margins and the Hitchcock collection seems merely to be an exaggeration of this character.⁴
STORY:
STORY TITLE: A genus founded in a Vienna journal of art, literature, theater and fashion
Syngonium auritum has the longest paper trail in the genus. Linnaeus named it Arum auritum in 1759, in the tenth edition of the Systema Naturae, and its lectotype is a Patrick Browne specimen in the Linnaean herbarium. Étienne Pierre Ventenat moved it to Caladium in 1801, and there it sat until 1829.⁴
In that year Heinrich Wilhelm Schott, the director of the imperial court gardens and menagerie in Vienna, published the genus Syngonium, with this species as its only member, in the Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst, Litteratur, Theater und Mode, a periodical devoted to art, literature, theater and fashion. The page in question is 780 of the year's third volume. It was not an isolated whim: Schott used the same journal for Dieffenbachia in 1829 and for Monstera in 1830. Botanists elsewhere learned of the new genera through a summary in the literature report of Linnaea in 1831, which gives Syngonium three lines: ovary one-celled and one-ovuled, four to five stamens fused together, the anther cells opposite, and a single species, Syngonium auritum.⁵
Because it was the first, Syngonium auritum is the type species of the genus, and Engler's Porphyrospatha of 1879, typified on Syngonium schottianum, has since been folded into it. Schott later described the same plant a second time as Syngonium plumieri, on the strength of Plumier's plate of 1693 labeled Arum hederaceum, triphyllum et auritum. In the field the species is recognized by its elongate spathe tube and a spathe blade up to twice as long as the staminate part of the spadix.⁴
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Syngonium auritum
2. Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst, Literatur, Theater und Mode 1829(3): 780 (1829) — protologue.
3. iNaturalist: Syngonium auritum
Additional photos by David Scherberich
Additional photos from iNaturalist by J.R. Kuethe, Damion Laren Whyte, avocat, Martin Reith, Mandy Mathews, peakaytea and Rich Hoyer