Subfamily Monsteroideae·Tribe Monstereae
Scindapsus
DESCRIPTION
Scindapsus is a genus of 35 accepted species of root-climbing lianes, perching epiphytes and a few rock-creeping herbs in the family Araceae, native from the eastern Himalaya and Bangladesh through Indo-China and the whole Malay Archipelago to New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and the Queensland coast, with one species on the islands of Chuuk in Micronesia. It belongs to the tribe Monstereae, the climbers' tribe of the Old World that also holds Rhaphidophora, Epipremnum, Amydrium and Anadendrum, with the American Monstera nested among them, and it is told from its look-alikes by the fruit: each ovary holds a single ovule on a basal placenta and ripens one large kidney-shaped seed, where Rhaphidophora packs many small seeds into every berry and Epipremnum a few. Two of those numbers need saying plainly. The Kew checklist stands at 36; this site accepts 35, because Hay and Yuzammi showed in 2000 that Scindapsus rupestris, described from limestone at Bau in Sarawak in 1905, is the same plant as the older Scindapsus sumatranus, and where a published revision and a checklist disagree the revision is followed here. The range map counts 34, one fewer again, because Scindapsus grandifolius, described in 1898 from a plant in the Bogor garden, has no known wild range and sits on no map.
The plant on the windowsill is the shingling juvenile of Scindapsus pictus, sold everywhere under the name satin pothos, a misnomer that has sadly spread through the whole hobby, although the plant has nothing to do with the true genus Pothos. It is a stage the species keeps for years pressed flat to the bark while it climbs; the adult, rarely seen, hangs in curtains of branched stems from the tops of tall trees. That double life runs through the genus. Most species are diffuse climbers on small trees and rock faces that seldom pass 5 m; a few, such as Scindapsus altissimus of New Guinea, are huge, few-stemmed lianes that reach the canopy of emergent trees and commonly exceed 60 m; the species of the Bornean Coriaceus Complex are almost shrubs, sprawling over sunlit kerangas ridges on thick leathery leaves, and those of the Beccarii Complex perch in trees with their leaves held in a fan that traps falling litter. No one has revised the genus since Engler and Krause in 1908, and the botanists who know it best put its real size at perhaps 60 species, about half of them still without a name. The name is Greek: skindapsos, an ancient word for a plant resembling ivy.
The genus has no sections. Engler and Krause's key of 1908 divided it first on the stigma, orbicular and sometimes raised against oblong or linear and sunken. Within the orbicular-stigma group it then used how far the petiole is sheathed; within the oblong or linear group it used lateral-vein pattern, while Scindapsus coriaceus stands apart. What the modern literature offers instead are two informal complexes named from Borneo. The Coriaceus Complex, seven named species and more unnamed, is defined by thickly leathery blades with the venation all but invisible, smooth stems, a semi-terrestrial to scandent habit that climbs only a little, a preference for exposed kerangas, and solitary inflorescences in a thick leathery spathe; only Scindapsus scortechinii of Peninsular Malaysia and southern Thailand occurs outside Borneo. The Beccarii Complex holds the perching epiphytes that trap litter in a fan of large leaves. Beyond them the genus splits informally by habit into the diffuse climbers, which are most of it, and the huge canopy lianes, and Scindapsus pictus and Scindapsus lucens stand apart from the rest on their leaves alone.
Satin pothos and silver pothos are wrong names, and sadly the most widely used ones in the hobby: the plant has nothing to do with the true genus Pothos. The mistake is borrowed twice over. The trade kept the nineteenth-century garden name under which the silver-spotted juvenile was first sold, Pothos argyraeus, and the golden pothos it is likened to is not a Pothos either but an Epipremnum. The Thai names, the Hindustani one and the Chuukese one are the vernaculars recorded in the floras, the 1908 monograph and Hosokawa's paper describing the Micronesian species.
DISTRIBUTION
Wholly tropical and, but for one outpost, wholly Asian. The range begins in Nepal and the eastern Himalaya, Assam and Bangladesh, runs through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to Hainan, reaches the Andaman and Nicobar islands in the Bay of Bengal, and takes in the whole Malay Archipelago from Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula through Borneo, Java, Sulawesi, the Philippines and the Moluccas to New Guinea. East of New Guinea it thins to the Solomon Islands and the Queensland coast, and to a single species on the islands of Chuuk, the only Scindapsus in Micronesia, found on a rocky sea-shore in 1936.
The center of the genus is Borneo, which holds 16 of the 34 mapped species, nine of them found nowhere else, and it is in Borneo that the unnamed species wait. Sumatra has 10, four of them endemic, Peninsular Malaysia 8, Java and Thailand 7 each, New Guinea 4, three of those endemic. Beyond Malesia the genus is carried by its few wide-ranging species: Scindapsus officinalis, the medicinal climber of India and Indo-China; Scindapsus hederaceus, from Indo-China through Sumatra, Java and Borneo to the Philippines; and Scindapsus maclurei, the giant of Hainan, Laos and Thailand. Kew records no introduced population anywhere. Scindapsus pictus, produced by the trade in tens of millions every year, has stayed in its pots.
CHROMOSOMES
4 species have been counted.
4 of 35 species have a published 2n count.
Base chromosome number: x = 15 (Mayo et al. 1997).
What chromosome numbers mean for a cross, in the Chromosomes and Crossing guide.
Counted species (4)
- Scindapsus haenkei60
- Scindapsus lucens60
- Scindapsus officinalis56
- Scindapsus pictus60, 110, 112
Sources (4)
- Bogner, J.; Boyce, P. C. 1994. Scindapsus lucens (Araceae: Monsteroideae), a new species related to Scindapsus pictus. Kew Bulletin 49(4): 789–792.
- Henny, R. J.; Chen, J. 2003. Cultivar Development of Ornamental Foliage Plants. Plant Breeding Reviews, Volume 23 (ed. J. Janick), John Wiley & Sons 23: 245.
- Marchant, C. J. 1970. Chromosome variation in Araceae: I. Pothoeae to Stylochitoneae. Kew Bulletin 24(2): 315–322.
- Mayo, S. J.; Bogner, J.; Boyce, P. C. 1997. The Genera of Araceae. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
ECOLOGY
Scindapsus is a genus of the wet forest. Most species live in perhumid to everwet broadleaf forest at low to middle elevations, and the bulk of them below 1,000 m: in the lowland mixed dipterocarp and peat swamp forests of Sundaland, on limestone, on sandstone and on the raised podzols of the swamps. The genus is not confined to it. Scindapsus officinalis and Scindapsus hederaceus grow in the dry deciduous and dry evergreen forests of Thailand and Indo-China, Scindapsus maclurei in dry dipterocarp forest among rocks, and the shrubby species of the Coriaceus Complex on ridgetop kerangas that stands in full sun and goes nearly dry for part of every year. The elevational span runs from the sea-shore of Chuuk, where Scindapsus carolinensis climbs the trees above the rocks, to the open kerangas ridges around Mount Kinabalu, where Scindapsus kinabaluensis grows between 1,400 and 2,500 m; Scindapsus alpinus was collected at 1,800 m on Mount Merapi in Sumatra and Scindapsus scortechinii lives between about 1,000 and 1,600 m in the hills of Perak. Flowering has never been followed through a year in the wild; on Kinabalu it is seen mainly in plants fully exposed to the sun. The charts below draw the genus's measured envelope across its native range, and all 26 of its native places resolve in the climate data.
Nearly every species is a nomadic vine. It germinates on the forest floor, climbs the nearest trunk on clasping roots, and keeps feeding through roots that run down to the ground as it climbs, so that the base of the stem can rot away and the plant lives on, still rooted in the soil below. The juvenile presses its leaves flat to the bark, in many species in a shingle pattern and often silver-marked; the adult carries its leaves free, and in the largest species the flowering stems hang from the canopy. Many species send out flagelliform foraging shoots, long thin stems with reduced leaves that run along the ground or the trunk until they find a new support. The exceptions are the genus's most interesting plants. The Coriaceus Complex of Borneo climbs little or not at all: scandent shrubs of exposed kerangas, on an almost xerophytic footing for part of the year and in strong sun for part of every day, an ecology matched among aroids only by the lithophytic Anthurium of eastern Brazil. The Beccarii Complex perches in trees and on rocks with its leaves in a litter-trapping fan. Writing to the Aroid-L mailing list from Sarawak on February 8th, 2007, Peter Boyce named Scindapsus beccarii, Scindapsus crassipes and Scindapsus geniculatus, with a couple of undescribed species, among the obligate primary epiphytes there, plants that start on a tree and stay on it, whereas the nomadic vines start on the ground. All of them form fans of foliage that work as litter traps. Scindapsus rupestris creeps over limestone as a rheophyte, and Scindapsus lucens was found, after being described from greenhouses, in an abandoned rubber plantation on limestone and in shady peat forest. Every tissue is armed with needle-like trichosclereids, and in Scindapsus latifolius they are shed from the disintegrating leaf sheaths to bristle over the growing tip. Pollination has been observed once: the yeast-scented inflorescences of Scindapsus kinabaluensis fill with flea beetles and small scarabs, and its ripe infructescence sheds its stylar plates to expose pulp that smells of fermenting pineapple, presumably for whatever animal carries the single large seed away.
Araceae · Form
Morphology
A climber built like a Rhaphidophora and told from one only by its fruit, which ripens a single kidney-shaped seed where its neighbors ripen dozens. The plant on the windowsill is the shingling juvenile; the adult lives in the canopy.
A stem that runs in two gears: leafy zones that flower, and whips of long internodes and small leaves sent out to find the next tree. No milky sap; the defense is a needle-shaped cell.
The stem
Every Scindapsus is an evergreen climbing herb, and the range of size is the range of the genus. Most species are diffuse climbers on small trees and rock faces that seldom pass 5 m; a few are huge, few-stemmed lianes that climb the emergent trees of New Guinea and commonly exceed 60 m; the shrubby species of the Bornean kerangas hardly climb at all. The stem is terete and, in the climbers, runs from 3 to 4 mm thick in Scindapsus lucens to about 2.5 cm in Scindapsus maclurei, with the medium-sized species such as Scindapsus officinalis at 1.5 to 2 cm. Its surface is a character. The young stem is green and smooth; with age the epidermis of Scindapsus officinalis turns orange-brown and flakes, the older primary axis of Scindapsus pictus wears a conspicuous orange, brittle, scabrid skin, Scindapsus lucens is verrucate, its warts the same green as the stem, and the old stems of Scindapsus kinabaluensis go corky and crack into fissures, while the Coriaceus Complex as a whole keeps its stems smooth.
The architecture was worked out on Scindapsus lucens in cultivation. The main stem is sympodial and fertile: the shoot tip flowers, and only after it has flowered does a continuation shoot develop beside the inflorescence, so that the continuation looks terminal and the inflorescence looks lateral. Side branches are few and repeat the pattern, and the whole plant conforms to Chamberlain's architectural model. The genus is not uniform: Hay put Scindapsus altissimus, the commonest species in New Guinea, in Stone's model, with a non-flowering clinging axis that emits free lateral shoots bearing the inflorescences. On the stem the leaves may be evenly spaced, or the shoot may alternate between rosulate flowering zones with crowded leaves and stretches of long internodes with smaller leaves. Many species push that second habit to its limit as a flagelliform shoot, a whip of long internodes with reduced leaves that runs along the ground or the trunk until it meets a support and begins to climb, at which point ordinary leaves resume. The oldest plants of the genus, the perching epiphytes of the Beccarii Complex, do the opposite: they sit still on a bole and hold their leaves in a fan.
Roots and armor
The plant climbs on adhesive roots produced at the nodes, one or two per node in the slender species, that grow into the bark and hold. Feeding roots run down the trunk to the soil, and once they are established the base of the stem may rot away without harm; a climber begun on the ground finishes its life as a nomadic vine, still fed from below. The roots of Scindapsus lucens are 1 to 2 mm thick with a spongy epidermis. The epiphytic Scindapsus geniculatus roots differently from the climbers: Peter Boyce, writing to the Aroid-L mailing list from Sarawak on February 8th, 2007, described it as forming short, erect, pointed roots extensively into the litter that its fan of leaves collects, as many Anthurium do.
Cut a Scindapsus and nothing white runs out. The subfamily has no laticifers; what it has instead, in abundance, are trichosclereids, needle-shaped cells with pointed ends that lie in every tissue and are the reason the leaves and stems are unpleasant to chew. In Scindapsus latifolius of Borneo the leaf sheaths and cataphylls decompose into a persistent net of fibers that sheds its sclereids over the growing tip, so that the shoot bristles with stinging needles; it is the only species in which the character is so exposed.
Fig · Stems, roots and the foraging shoot
One leaf shape, always entire and finely parallel-veined, but two lives: a shingling juvenile pressed to the bark, and an adult that lifts its leaves into the air.
Petiole, sheath and knee
The petiole is geniculate at the top: a short swollen knee, 1 to 1.5 cm long in Scindapsus lucens, that lets the blade turn toward the light, and that becomes visible on an old leaf only after the blade has moved. Below it the petiole is sheathed, in most species broadly and for most or all of its length. In Scindapsus officinalis the sheath is a spreading, persistent wing 1 to 3 cm across that ends in a short free ligule; in Scindapsus beccarii a broad thick sheath runs up a fleshy petiole to the base of the knee; in Scindapsus lucens it stops just short of the knee. Within the orbicular-stigma group, Engler and Krause used the length of the sheath as the next cut in their key; within the oblong-stigma group they used lateral-vein pattern. The petiolar sheath occasionally decomposes into a persistent net of fibers with abundant stinging sclereids.
The blade
The blade is always entire. No Scindapsus is perforated or pinnatifid, and that is the character that separates the genus in the key from Monstera and from the Amazonian Alloschemone, which shares its single basal ovule but cuts its adult leaves into lobes. Within that rule the leaf is lanceolate, elliptic, ovate or obovate, acuminate, and very often oblique, one side of the blade wider than the other; in Scindapsus treubii the blades are sub-succulent and so strongly oblique that they lie in two neat ranks up the stem. Texture runs from thin in the shade climbers to thickly and stiffly leathery in the Coriaceus Complex, whose blades are narrowly elliptic and so thick that the veins all but disappear. The venation is the tribe's: primary lateral veins hardly distinguished from the secondaries, all pinnate and parallel, running out to a marginal vein, with the secondaries and often the tertiaries parallel too and only the finest veins forming a transverse network. It is this fine, even striation that makes a sterile Scindapsus so hard to tell from a Rhaphidophora.
Variegation is rare in the wild and the genus's fortune in the trade. Scindapsus pictus splashes its dark, scintillating juvenile leaves with silver; the juveniles of Scindapsus officinalis occasionally carry irregular jagged silver streaks; Scindapsus lucens is gray-green, glossy and bullate, its surface puckered between the veins. Everything else is plain green. Peter Boyce, writing to the Aroid-L mailing list on February 9th, 2007, thought Scindapsus geniculatus particularly nice because the back of its leaves is chalky-gray.
Two lives
Juvenile plants of many species are shingle plants: the leaves are pressed flat against the bark, overlapping like tiles, and the plant climbs as a mosaic. Scindapsus pictus holds that form for years, and it is the only form the trade has ever sold; the adult, produced in the canopy, carries much larger, plain-margined leaves free of the trunk and hangs its branched flowering stems in curtains from the tops of tall trees. Not every species changes. Scindapsus officinalis is homeophyllous, the same leaf from bottom to top, and Scindapsus lucens in cultivation keeps one leaf form through its life where its close relative Scindapsus pictus changes, so that a plant of the first can be grown up and a plant of the second is pruned to keep it young. The kerangas species of Borneo skip the shingling stage altogether: their juveniles are terrestrial plants sprawling through the litter, and their adults hardly climb.
Fig · Shingling juveniles and the adult leaf
Usually one at a time. A boat-shaped spathe that may gape slightly or open almost flat, a spadix of naked bisexual flowers, a stigma whose shape was once the key to the genus, and beetles for visitors.
Arrangement and the spathe
The inflorescence is very often solitary, produced near the stem apex on a peduncle shorter than the petiole and at first hidden inside the petiolar sheath, from which it works its way out sideways. The spathe is boat-shaped and never constricted. At anthesis it is only slightly gaping or opens almost flat; it may be caducous, deciduous, persistent or marcescent. Its color is a pale yellow in most species that have been seen alive: milky yellow and fleshy in Scindapsus kinabaluensis, yellow and 28 to 33.5 cm long in the giant Scindapsus maclurei, yellow and 4 to 6.5 cm in Scindapsus treubii. In the Coriaceus Complex it is thick and leathery.
The spadix and the flower
The spadix is sessile or shortly stipitate, cylindric to narrowly ellipsoid or clavate, a little shorter than the spathe, much thicker than the peduncle, and it dries black. Scindapsus treubii carries a spadix 3 to 4.5 cm long and 7 mm thick; Scindapsus maclurei one of 26 to 28.5 by 3 to 4.5 cm. Its flowers are bisexual and naked, with no perigone, and each is a small prism. Four free stamens surround the ovary, their filaments oblong, flattened and strap-shaped, their thecae opening by an apical slit; the pollen is medium-sized, fully zonate and hamburger-shaped, 33 to 45 µm across. The ovary is one-locular and holds a single basal anatropous ovule on a short funicle, rarely two, and above it the stylar region is well developed and prismatic, four- to six-angled and flat-topped, so that the surface of the spadix is a mosaic of hexagonal plates. The stigma sits on that plate, globose, elongate, elliptic, linear or a mere point, and its shape was the first cut in Engler and Krause's key of 1908: orbicular and sometimes raised on one side, oblong or linear and sunken on the other. At pistillate anthesis a droplet stands on every stigma.
Who comes
The only pollination record is from Kinabalu. The inflorescences of Scindapsus kinabaluensis smell of yeast at anthesis, and inside the hardly open spathe they fill with flea beetles of the genus Chaloenus and small scarabs of the genus Peltonotus, the same genera that visit other Bornean Monstereae. Whether the rest of the genus is beetle-pollinated has not been checked, but the barely gaping spathe, the pale fleshy tissue and the scent are the same equipment.
Fig · The spathe, the spadix and the flower
The stylar plates lift off like tiles to expose the pulp, and each berry holds one large kidney-shaped seed. That seed is the genus.
After anthesis the spathe may be gone and the spadix ripens naked. The stylar plates stay fitted edge to edge over the swelling ovaries for months, then loosen and slough away, and the exposed pulp of Scindapsus kinabaluensis is pale and smells of fermenting pineapple; in Scindapsus maclurei the plates first enlarge greatly and recurve at the margins, waxy-looking, and the infructescence ripens yellow, where the generic description gives berries as ripening dull orange to dull red or white. It is a monsterocarp of the ordinary tribal kind, and what is inside it is not. Each berry holds a single seed, rounded to kidney-shaped and compressed, with a thickish testa that is smooth or sparsely warty, a curved embryo and, unlike the seed of Monstera, endosperm. Its neighbors are made otherwise: Rhaphidophora packs numerous straight spindle-shaped seeds 1.3 to 3.2 mm long into each berry, Epipremnum has four, rarely six, ovules at the base of a single placenta and sets a few curved seeds 3 to 7 mm long, and the one big seed on a basal placenta is the character that names a fruiting Scindapsus at a glance. Only two Epipremnum, Epipremnum ceramense of Maluku and Epipremnum falcifolium of Borneo, blur the line, since they seem habitually to abort all but one ovule and so often ripen a single seed, and their assignment is still argued.
What carries the seed is unknown; the fragrant pulp exposed by the sloughing plates is an invitation to some animal, but nobody has watched one accept it. The seed germinates on the forest floor, and Engler and Krause figured a germinating Scindapsus hederaceus, the first leaf rising on a slender stem from the seed while the roots spread below. From there the plant is terrestrial until it finds a trunk.
Fig · One seed in every fruit
Araceae · In cultivation
Cultivation
Scindapsus pictus is the one Scindapsus most people will ever grow, and it is grown as a permanent juvenile. Everything it wants follows from what a shingling climber does on a trunk in wet shade, and everything that goes wrong follows from a pot that is too wet or air that is too dry.
A hemiepiphyte in a pot: open, moisture-holding, never waterlogged, and something rough to climb.
In the wild the plant germinates in the litter of well-drained forest, climbs, and feeds through roots that run down the trunk to the ground while the rest of it lives in air against bark. A pot has to be the forest floor and the trunk at once. The mixes that serve are the ordinary open aroid mixes: a peat- or coir-based potting soil cut with bark and perlite so that water runs through and air follows it, kept moist rather than wet. The Missouri Botanical Garden grows Scindapsus pictus in a moist, well-drained mix on a moss stick; the trade's growers finish it in standard indoor potting mixes with good drainage; hobbyists root and grow it in long-fibered sphagnum. The plant is not fussy about the recipe, only about the drainage. The registrant of the cultivar 'Mayari' grows it in the ground in Sabah at a pH of 5.1 to 5.5, where it makes markedly larger leaves than in a pot, and that is the one measured number the genus has.
The support is part of the substrate. Clasping roots grow toward the dark and into whatever they touch, and a moss or coir pole kept damp gives them something to take that a bare cane does not; a Scindapsus pictus allowed to climb a damp pole produces larger leaves than one left to trail. The species of the Coriaceus Complex want the opposite treatment. They come from ridgetop kerangas on podzols and sandstone in full sun and near-drought for part of every year, and they need a lean, sharply drained mix and no coddling; Kartini and her colleagues note that they are easy to grow and almost never grown.
A light feeder. Little and often through the growing season, and nothing in the dark months.
No fertilizer trial has been published for any Scindapsus, and the numbers on the labels are borrowed from the Epipremnum crop. What the growers who keep the plant agree on is that it is a light feeder: a balanced liquid fertilizer at half strength once a month during active growth, or at full strength every other month, is enough, and the Missouri Botanical Garden feeds monthly in the growing season and not at all in winter. Slow-release granules at the low end of the label rate do the same job with less attention. A plant in a coir-based mix, which holds little nutrient of its own, is the one that needs the schedule kept.
Two signs mean too much rather than too little. Brown leaf margins and a white crust on the surface of the mix are salt, and the cure is to flush the pot with plain water and skip a feeding. A plant that is not growing because it is cold or dark cannot use fertilizer and should not be given any; feeding resumes when the new leaves do. The registrant of 'Legacy' in Sabah, growing at 28 to 30 °C and 60 to 80 percent humidity, waters weekly and lets the ground do the feeding.
Warm, bright shade, humid air, and a pot that dries part way between waterings. Light keeps the silver; height decides the leaf.
Light
Bright, indirect light is the standard prescription, and the plant tolerates less: low to medium light in the trade's description, shade to part shade in a greenhouse, never direct sun on the leaf. The silver of Scindapsus pictus holds in good light and dulls in a dark corner, where the plant also stretches, and a variegated cultivar with little chlorophyll needs the brightest shade it can get without scorch. The Coriaceus Complex, alone in the genus, wants sun.
Warmth and humidity
The plant is a lowland tropical hemiepiphyte and grows within a band every source draws in nearly the same place: 65 to 85 °F at the Missouri Botanical Garden, 60 to 85 °F in the trade, 15 to 25 °C in the hobby literature, with a greenhouse tolerance from 50 to 95 °F. The Royal Horticultural Society rates Scindapsus pictus H1C, a plant for a heated house that must never fall below 5 to 10 °C, and it is that floor rather than the ceiling that kills plants in temperate rooms. Humidity above 50 percent is comfortable and 60 to 80 percent is what the cultivars are raised in at home in Sabah; in dry winter air the leaf margins brown and spider mites arrive. Water when the top 2 to 5 cm of the mix have dried, or when half to two-thirds of the pot is dry, and then thoroughly; the leaves curl inward when the plant is thirsty and flatten again within a day of a drink, and that signal is more reliable than a schedule. A pot kept wet rots the roots, and a rotted Scindapsus is usually lost.
Height, and the leaf that changes
Scindapsus pictus is a slow grower that reaches 1 to 1.5 m in a pot, trails from a basket, and rarely flowers indoors. It is heteroblastic: a plant allowed to climb produces larger leaves, and a plant kept climbing long enough would begin the change to the adult, whose leaves are large, plain-margined and green. Growers keep it juvenile by pruning, and the same pruning is what keeps the shape of a basket plant. Scindapsus lucens does not change and can be grown up on a pole without losing its look; Scindapsus treubii, the other commonly grown species, climbs slowly and keeps its two-ranked blades. Whatever the species, the geniculum turns each blade toward the window, and a plant left in one orientation will face it.
Roots from any node, and almost never from seed. The crop is made in the laboratory by the tens of millions.
Cuttings
Every node carries the roots the plant climbs with, and a cutting of one or two nodes roots in water, in damp sphagnum or in an open mix within a few weeks at room temperature and high humidity. Nodal cuttings in water are the hobby's standard and long-fibered sphagnum the nursery's; either way the cutting wants warmth, shade and a node in contact with the medium, and the new plant is potted once the roots are a few centimeters long. Layering a climbing stem onto a pole does the same thing without a cut. The cutting is a clone of the juvenile, which is why the trade has never had to see the adult.
Tissue culture, and where the cultivars come from
Scindapsus pictus is one of the most heavily micropropagated ornamentals in the world, produced in the tens of millions every year by shoot culture and by somatic embryogenesis from leaf explants, and the laboratory is also where its cultivars appear. Two United States plant patents protect selections of it, and the named forms in the trade, from 'Argyraeus' and 'Exotica' to 'Silver Splash', 'Silvery Ann' and the all-silver 'Silver Hero', are sports and selections of the juvenile phase multiplied in flask. The registered cultivars 'Mayari' and 'Legacy' were selected in Sabah and are propagated by cuttings. There are no hybrids; none has ever been recorded in the genus.
Seed
Seed is almost never offered and has no published germination record. Scindapsus pictus rarely flowers in cultivation and, with no pollinator, sets no fruit; the species that fruit in gardens do so only in the tropics. Engler and Krause's figure of a germinating Scindapsus hederaceus is the whole literature of the seedling.
Among the least troubled of the indoor aroids. Dry air brings mites, wet feet bring rot, and the pathologists have never had to write about it.
There is no disease literature for the genus; nothing has been described from a Scindapsus crop as a named problem, and the plant's reputation for ease is earned. The insect pests are the standard glasshouse set. Spider mites are the one to expect, arriving on plants kept in dry winter air and showing first as a fine stippling on the older leaves; mealybugs hide in the leaf sheaths and at the nodes, where the shingling habit gives them cover; armored and soft scales, thrips and aphids turn up occasionally and whiteflies rarely. Humidity above 50 percent, a rinse of the foliage and a check of the sheaths at every watering prevent most of it, and a plant that does get mites is cleaned with soap or oil and moved to damper air.
The complaints that are not pests are the common ones. Yellowing lower leaves and a collapsing plant are root rot from a pot kept wet, and the cure is a drier regime or, if the roots have gone, a cutting from the healthy top. Curled leaves are thirst. Brown crisp margins are dry air or salt. Faded silver and a stretched stem are too little light. Each is corrected by the condition, not by a spray. The plant's trichosclereids make it unpalatable and mildly irritant, and the Royal Horticultural Society lists it as harmful if eaten; keep it from pets and children.
Scindapsus Timeline
An interactive timeline showing the year each Scindapsus species was first described as Scindapsus (species may previously have been classified in other genera)
Scindapsus Species & Cultivars
Named cultivars whose species is not given: it is unknown or disputed, or the plant was selected from another cultivar not in the archive. Counted as cultivars.
Sources
The papers behind the morphology & cultivation tab
- Mayo, S. J., Bogner, J. & Boyce, P. C. (1997). The Genera of Araceae. Kew: Royal Botanic Gardens.
- Boyce, P. C., Sookchaloem, D., Hetterscheid, W. L. A., Gusman, G., Jacobsen, N., Idei, T. & Nguyen Van Du (2012). Araceae. In: Santisuk, T. & Larsen, K. (eds), Flora of Thailand 11(2): 101–325. Bangkok: Prachachon.
- Engler, A. & Krause, K. (1908). Araceae–Monsteroideae. In: Engler, A. (ed.), Das Pflanzenreich IV.23B (Heft 37): 4–139. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann.
- Bogner, J. & Boyce, P. C. (1994). Scindapsus lucens (Araceae: Monsteroideae), a new species related to Scindapsus pictus. Kew Bulletin 49(4): 789–792.
- Ahmad Sofiman Othman, Boyce, P. C. & Chan, L. K. (2010). Studies on Monstereae (Araceae) of Peninsular Malaysia III: Scindapsus lucens, a new record for Malaysia, and a key to Peninsular Malaysian Scindapsus. Gardens' Bulletin Singapore 62(1): 9–15.
- Kartini Saibeh, Siva Rohgini A/P Batumale & Boyce, P. C. (2015). Studies on Monstereae (Araceae) of Borneo II: Furtado's Rhaphidophora kinabaluensis elucidated and transferred to Scindapsus. Willdenowia 45(3): 409–413.
- Boyce, P. C. (1993). A possible defense mechanism in Scindapsus latifolius (Araceae: Monsteroideae). Aroideana 16: 31–32.
- Boyce, P. C. (1998). The genus Epipremnum Schott (Araceae–Monsteroideae–Monstereae) in West and Central Malesia. Blumea 43(1): 183–213.
- Wong, S. Y. (2016). Araceae of peat swamp forests. In: Mohd-Azlan, J. & Das, I. (eds), Biodiversity of Tropical Peat Swamp Forests of Sarawak: 35–86.
- Royal Horticultural Society. Scindapsus pictus 'Argyraeus'. RHS plant profile.
- Missouri Botanical Garden. Scindapsus pictus 'Argyraeus'. Plant Finder.
- OurHouseplants. Scindapsus pictus (satin pothos): info, care tips and problem guide.
- International Aroid Society, Aroid Cultivar Registry. Scindapsus 'Mayari' (Scindapsus pictus). Registry entry.
- International Aroid Society, Aroid Cultivar Registry. Scindapsus 'Legacy' (Scindapsus pictus). Registry entry.
- Khemakongkanond, K. (2010). Scindapsus plant named 'SUPHA10'. US Plant Patent PP21,321, granted September 28, 2010.
- Keil, T. (2023). Scindapsus plant named 'Silver Baby'. US Plant Patent PP35,151, granted May 2, 2023. Emma's Garden Growers Inc.
- Proven Winners (n.d.). Shimmering Falls Sage and Cream satin pothos (Scindapsus), leafjoy. Plant page, provenwinners.com. Accessed 15 October 2026.
- Aroid-L mailing list, Peter Boyce, February 8th, 2007
- Aroid-L mailing list, Peter Boyce, February 9th, 2007
Complete Scindapsus Bibliography
Every source cited across all Scindapsus species, cultivar and hybrid pages
- Steve's Leaves stevesleaves.com
- Scindapsus 'Black Mamba' Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus 'Lahat' Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus 'Platinum', Scindapsus pictus 'Exotica Platinum' Aroidpedia pageAroidpedia page
- Scindapsus 'Silver Lady' Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus pictus 'Argyraeus' Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus pictus 'Green Army' Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus pictus 'Green Form' Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus pictus 'Jade Satin' Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus pictus 'Jade Satin' Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus pictus 'Mangurai' Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus pictus 'Silver Baby', Scindapsus pictus 'Silver Cloud' Aroidpedia pageAroidpedia page
- Scindapsus pictus 'Silver Dutchess' Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus pictus 'Silver Hero' Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus pictus 'Silvery Ann' Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus pictus 'Tattoo' Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus pictus 'Tricolor' Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus treubii 'Dark Form' Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus treubii 'Moonlight' Aroidpedia page
- Boyce & Wong 2015. Compendium Genera Aracearum Malesianum. Aroideana 38E(1): 40–177 researchgate.net SCINDAPSUS ALPINUSSCINDAPSUS ALTISSIMUSSCINDAPSUS BECCARIISCINDAPSUS CAROLINENSISSCINDAPSUS CORIACEUSSCINDAPSUS CUSCUARIOIDESSCINDAPSUS GLAUCESCENSSCINDAPSUS JAVANICUSSCINDAPSUS KINABALUENSISSCINDAPSUS LATIFOLIUSSCINDAPSUS LONGISTIPITATUSSCINDAPSUS MAMILLIFERSCINDAPSUS ROSEUSSCINDAPSUS SCHLECHTERISCINDAPSUS SPLENDIDUSSCINDAPSUS SUFFRUTICOSUS
- Engler & Krause 1908. Araceae-Monsteroideae. Das Pflanzenreich IV.23B (Heft 37): 4–139 archive.org
- Costa Farms plant finder costafarms.com
- Scindapsus 'Black Mamba', Scindapsus 'Mount Salak', Scindapsus 'Platinum', Scindapsus 'Silver Lady', Scindapsus pictus 'Argyraeus', Scindapsus pictus 'Exotica', Scindapsus treubii 'Moonlight' Aroidpedia pageAroidpedia pageAroidpedia pageAroidpedia pageAroidpedia pageAroidpedia pageAroidpedia page
- Scindapsus 'Platinum', Scindapsus pictus 'Exotica Platinum', Scindapsus pictus 'Silver Baby', Scindapsus pictus 'Silver Hero', Scindapsus treubii 'Moonlight' Aroidpedia pageAroidpedia pageAroidpedia pageAroidpedia pageAroidpedia page
- iNaturalist inaturalist.org
- Scindapsus hederaceus Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus kinabaluensis Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus latifolius Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus longistipitatus Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus lucens Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus officinalis Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus pictus Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus scortechinii Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus treubii Aroidpedia page
- Boyce 1998. The genus Epipremnum Schott (Araceae-Monsteroideae-Monstereae) in west and central Malesia. Blumea 43: 183–213 repository.naturalis.nl
- International Aroid Society Aroid Cultivar Registry aroidcultivars.org
- Scindapsus 'Mount Salak', Scindapsus 'Silver Lady', Scindapsus pictus 'Argyraeus', Scindapsus pictus 'Exotica', Scindapsus pictus 'Silver Splash', Scindapsus treubii 'Dark Form' Aroidpedia pageAroidpedia pageAroidpedia pageAroidpedia pageAroidpedia pageAroidpedia page
- Scindapsus pictus 'Exotica', Scindapsus pictus 'Legacy' Aroidpedia pageAroidpedia page
- Scindapsus pictus 'Exotica', Scindapsus pictus 'Mayari' Aroidpedia pageAroidpedia page
- JOMO Studio: The difference between Scindapsus varieties jomostudio.com
- Ahmad Sofiman, Boyce & Chan 2010. Studies on Monstereae (Araceae) of Peninsular Malaysia III: Scindapsus lucens, a new record for Malaysia, and a key to Peninsular Malaysian Scindapsus. Gardens' Bulletin Singapore 62(1): 9–15 biodiversitylibrary.org
- Hooker 1893. Scindapsus. The Flora of British India 6: 541–543 archive.org
- Moody Blooms: Scindapsus varieties moodybloomsco.com
- OurHouseplants ourhouseplants.com
- Scindapsus 'Silver Lady', Scindapsus pictus 'Argyraeus', Scindapsus pictus 'Exotica', Scindapsus pictus 'Jade Satin', Scindapsus pictus 'Silvery Ann' Aroidpedia pageAroidpedia pageAroidpedia pageAroidpedia pageAroidpedia page
- Scindapsus treubii 'Dark Form', Scindapsus treubii 'Moonlight' Aroidpedia pageAroidpedia page
- Engler 1882. Aracee della Malesia e della Papuasia raccolte da O. Beccari. Malesia 1: 259–302 archive.org
- Hotta 1966. Notes on Bornean plants I. Acta Phytotaxonomica et Geobotanica 22(1–2): 1–10 jstage.jst.go.jp
- Kartini, Siva Rohgini & Boyce 2015. Studies on Monstereae (Araceae) of Borneo II: Furtado's Rhaphidophora kinabaluensis elucidated and transferred to Scindapsus. Willdenowia 45(3): 409–413 doi.org
- North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox plants.ces.ncsu.edu
- Proven Winners leafjoy provenwinners.com
- Scindapsus 'Green Anaconda' Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus 'Kalimantan' Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus 'Sage And Cream' Aroidpedia page
- Scindapsus 'Sage And Cream', Scindapsus pictus 'Silver Splash' Aroidpedia pageAroidpedia page
- Scindapsus 'Tricolor Silver', Scindapsus pictus 'Tricolor' Aroidpedia pageAroidpedia page
- Ridley 1905. The aroids of Borneo. Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 44: 169–188 archive.org
- Ridley 1925. Araceae. The Flora of the Malay Peninsula 5: 84–131 archive.org
- A Natural Curiosity: For people who want to know more about Scindapsus anaturalcuriosity.org
- Ridley 1907. Araceae. Materials for a Flora of the Malayan Peninsula, Part III: 1–53 archive.org
- Wong 2016. Araceae of peat swamp forests. In: Biodiversity of Tropical Peat Swamp Forests of Sarawak: 35–86 researchgate.net
- Alderwerelt van Rosenburgh 1920. New or noteworthy Malayan Araceae I. Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg sér. 3, 1: 359–389 archive.org
- Bogner & Boyce 1994. Scindapsus lucens (Araceae: Monsteroideae), a new species related to Scindapsus pictus. Kew Bulletin 49(4): 789–792 doi.org
- Boyce 1993. A possible defense mechanism in Scindapsus latifolius (Araceae: Monsteroideae). Aroideana 16: 31–32 aroid.org
- Boyce, Sookchaloem, Hetterscheid, Gusman, Jacobsen, Idei & Nguyen 2012. Acoraceae and Araceae. Flora of Thailand 11(2): 101–325 researchgate.net
- By Brittany Goldwyn: Scindapsus varieties bybrittanygoldwyn.com
- Alderwerelt van Rosenburgh 1922. New or noteworthy Malayan Araceae II. Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg sér. 3, 4: 163–229 archive.org
- Engler 1898. Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Araceae VII. Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie 25: 13 archive.org
- Khemakongkanond, K. 2010. Scindapsus plant named 'SUPHA10'. US Plant Patent PP21,321 patents.google.com
- Alderwerelt van Rosenburgh 1920. New or noteworthy Malayan Araceae I. Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg sér. 3, 1: 389 archive.org
- Aroid-L mailing list, Peter Boyce, February 8th, 2007 hort.net
- Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie 1: 182 (1880) archive.org
- Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg ser. 3, 1: 387 (1920) archive.org
- Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg ser. 3, 4: 226 (1922) archive.org
- Furtado 1935. Araceae Malesicae. The Gardens' Bulletin, Straits Settlements 8: 145–158 nparks.gov.sg
- Keil, T. 2023. Scindapsus plant named 'Silver Baby'. US Plant Patent PP35,151 patents.google.com
- Mashhor, Boyce, Ahmad Sofiman & Baharuddin 2011. The Araceae of Peninsular Malaysia. Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang aroidsociety.org
- Wikipedia: Scindapsus pictus en.wikipedia.org
- Alderwerelt van Rosenburgh 1922. New or noteworthy Malayan Araceae III. Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg sér. 3, 4: 320–347 archive.org
- Aroid-L mailing list, Peter Boyce, February 9th, 2007 hort.net
- BC Plant Dad: Scindapsus 'Mayari' bcplantdad.ca
- Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie 37: 119 (1905) archive.org
- Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie 49: 95 (1912) archive.org
- Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie 54: 81 (1916) archive.org
- Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg ser. 3, 4: 228 (1922) archive.org
- Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg ser. 3, 4: 346 (1922) archive.org
- Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg, ser. 3, 1: 388 (1920) archive.org
- Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg, ser. 3, 4: 225 (1922) archive.org
- Das Pflanzenreich IV.23B (Heft 37): 138 (1908) archive.org
- Das Pflanzenreich IV.23B (Heft 37): 70 (1908) archive.org
- Das Pflanzenreich IV.23B (Heft 37): 72 (1908) archive.org
- Engler & Krause 1908. Araceae-Monsteroideae. Das Pflanzenreich IV.23B (Heft 37): 79–80 archive.org
- Epimeliae Botanicae 242 (1849) archive.org
- Flora van Nederlandsch Indië 3: 185 (1856) archive.org
- Flora van Nederlandsch Indië 3: 187 (1856) archive.org
- Home Plants Guide: Scindapsus pictus varieties homeplantsguide.com
- Journal of Japanese Botany 13: 194 (1937) jstage.jst.go.jp
- Li & Boyce 2010. Scindapsus. Flora of China 23: 15 efloras.org
- Mayo, Bogner & Boyce 1997. The Genera of Araceae. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew aroid.org
- Meletemata Botanica 21 (1832) archive.org
- Merrill 1922. Diagnoses of Hainan plants. Philippine Journal of Science 21(4): 337–354 archive.org
- Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder: Scindapsus pictus 'Argyraeus' plantfinder.mobot.org
- Philippine Journal of Science 29: 353 (1926) archive.org
- Royal Horticultural Society: Scindapsus pictus 'Argyraeus' rhs.org.uk
- Telopea 9: 170 (2000) doi.org
- The Flora of British India 6(19): 542 (1893) archive.org
- Tijdschrift voor Natuurlijke Geschiedenis en Physiologie 9: 164 (1842) archive.org
Chromosome counts
The 4 papers behind the published chromosome numbers on the Scindapsus pages and in the genus's Chromosomes section.
- Bogner, J.; Boyce, P. C. 1994. Scindapsus lucens (Araceae: Monsteroideae), a new species related to Scindapsus pictus. Kew Bulletin 49(4): 789–792.
- Henny, R. J.; Chen, J. 2003. Cultivar Development of Ornamental Foliage Plants. Plant Breeding Reviews, Volume 23 (ed. J. Janick), John Wiley & Sons 23: 245.
- Marchant, C. J. 1970. Chromosome variation in Araceae: I. Pothoeae to Stylochitoneae. Kew Bulletin 24(2): 315–322.
- Mayo, S. J.; Bogner, J.; Boyce, P. C. 1997. The Genera of Araceae. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.