SYNGONIUM PODOPHYLLUM 'TRI-LEAF WONDER'
ORIGIN:
John C. Rutenschroer, Cincinnati, Ohio; US Plant Patent 763, 1947
CULTIVAR DESCRIPTION:
A selection grown for the ash-green to whitish variegation that follows the midrib and lateral veins and may spread over the whole blade, on a plant that reaches the lobed, three- to five-parted adult leaf sooner than the typical species.¹,² The 1947 patent describes firm, leathery leaves whose central and branching veins are picked out in white and framed by a distinct border vein running just inside the margin, the older leaves a deeper green than the new.¹
NOTES:
1. A United States plant patent was granted for a new and distinct variety of Nephthytis plant. John C. Rutenschroer of Cincinnati, Ohio, described it as a sport found on a Nephthytis liberica plant about three years before his application of November 1946, with 2,700 plants in existence at a greenhouse in Cincinnati, Ohio at the time; Plant Patent 763 was granted on 23 September 1947.¹
2. Birdsey, who transferred the name to Syngonium podophyllum as a horticultural cultigen in 1951, recorded a different account from R. Hogshead of North Miami, who said the plant came from a batch of colchicine-treated seed sent to the patentee by accident. Birdsey noted that colchicine is not known to induce mutations of this kind, so the story remains unverified.²
3. Graf spelled the name 'Trileaf Wonder' and described a cultigen with a varying amount of ash-green on the leaf, principally on the midrib and lateral veins, whose mature segmented leaves are produced more quickly.⁴
4. Unconfirmed: Modern stock under the name is of two kinds, a silver-veined vine matching the patent and botanical-garden material, and an unmarked glossy green trifoliate plant that does not.³
STORY:
STORY TITLE: The first patented arrowhead vine and a colchicine rumor
In November 1946 John C. Rutenschroer, a Cincinnati grower, applied to patent a Nephthytis plant. He had found it about three years earlier as a sport on the plain green Nephthytis liberica of the florist trade, and by the time he filed he had 2,700 plants of it. The patent, granted on September 23rd, 1947, as Plant Patent 763, is the first ever issued for a Syngonium. Its drawing shows what made the plant worth protecting: three- and five-bladed leaves with a white central vein, white branching veins and a border vein stitched just inside the edge, on a vine whose petioles carry a fin-like wing part way up from the node.¹
Four years later Monroe Birdsey, sorting out the cultivated aroids for his 1951 book, gave the plant its modern name, Syngonium podophyllum cultigen Tri-leaf Wonder, and added a rumor he had heard in Miami. According to R. Hogshead of North Miami the plant had not been a chance sport at all but one of a batch of colchicine-treated Syngonium seedlings that had been sent to the Ohio nursery by accident in an order. Birdsey was skeptical, pointing out that colchicine doubles chromosomes rather than inducing mutations, but he recorded that other plants from the same batch had behaved in a most peculiar manner. The story has never been confirmed, and the patent remains the only first-hand account.²
REFERENCES:
1. Rutenschroer, J.C. 1947. Nephthytis plant. US Plant Patent 763
2. Birdsey, M.R. 1951. The Cultivated Aroids. Gillick Press, Berkeley, California (pp. 124–125)
4. Graf, A.B. 1992. Tropica: Color Cyclopedia of Exotic Plants and Trees, 4th edition. Roehrs Company, East Rutherford, New Jersey