Scindapsus
(from Skindapsos, an old Greek name for an Ivy-like plant). ORD. Aroideae (Araceae). A genus comprising about nine species of tall, robust, climbing, stove shrubs, natives of tropical Asia, the Indian Archipelago, New Guinea, and the Fiji Islands. Flowers all perfect, densely disposed on a sessile, cylindrical, inappendiculate, hermaphrodite spadix; spathe cymbiform, thick, longer than the spadix; peduncle terminal, short, thick. Leaves ovate, oblong, or oblong-lanceolate, acuminate; petioles elongated, sheathing at apex. S. officinalis, the only species introduced, requires culture similar to Caladium (which see). Some of the plants formerly included here are now placed under Rhaphidophora.
S. argyraea (silvery). l. thickly coriaceous, of a beautiful green, unspotted, or with numerous silvery spots, obliquely cordate ovate, very inequilateral, 4in. to 6in. long, 2 1/2in. to 3 1/4in. broad, shortly and acutely acuminate, the posterior lobes rounded; petioles 1 1/2in. to 2in. long. Stem climbing, the internodes 3in. to 4in. long. Philippine Islands, 1859. SYN. Pothos argyraea (of gardens).
S. officinalis (officinal). fl., spathe green outside, dirty-yellow within, four times as long as the thick peduncle, long-cuspidate; spadix very thick, attenuated at both ends. May. l. as long as the petioles, emarginate at apex, ovate-oblong, rounded or loosely cordate-emarginate at base, abruptly long-cuspidate at apex. h. 4ft. India, 1820.
S. picta (painted). fl., spathe cuspidate, about 2 1/2in. long; spadix very shortly stipitate, cylindroid; peduncle rather shorter than the petioles. l. obliquely oblong, inequilateral, rounded or slightly cordate at base, narrowed at apex into a cusp, coriaceous, dark green above, clouded and irregularly spotted, paler and unspotted beneath, 4in. to 5 1/2in. long. Java.