TAXONOMIC TREATMENT

Syngonium Schott, Wiener Z. Kunst 3:780. 1829. TYPE: Arum auritum L. Syngonium auritum (L.) Schott.

Porphyrospatha Engler in A. DC., Monogr. Phan. 2:289. 1879. TYPE: Syngonium schottianum Wendl.

Epiphytes or hemiepiphytes; sap Of most parts milky; stems scandent or shortcreeping, usually unbranched, the internodes long or short, the nodes usually rooting heavily; juvenile plants usually terrestrial, the first blades ovate to elliptic, simple, with succeeding stages usually sagittate and climbing; adult leaves simple or variously divided, trisect to pedatisect with 5-11 leaflets, rarely incised-lobate; petioles sheathed in part, rarely throughout their length, the upper part subterete, usually with an obtuse medial rib; simple blades usually ovate, sometimes oblongelliptic, frequently +- sagittate; blades usually moderately thin, the median segments usually more or less equilateral, the lateral segments of trisect or pedatisect blades often conspicuously inequilateral and auriculate; primary lateral veins spreading, forming up to 3 or more collective veins.

Inflorescences 1 or more per axil; peduncles erect in flower, pendent in fruit, commonly rounded on one side, obtusely angular on the other side; spathe tube ovoid to ellipsoid, green at anthesis, frequently tinged with purple, often red, orange or yellow in fruit, usually reopening to expose the syncarp, sometimes brightly colored within at maturity; spathe blade white to greenish white and opening broadly at anthesis, usually ovate-elliptic, often acuminate at the apex, normally much constricted at the base, always drying soon after anthesis, usually deciduous; spadix much shorter than the spathe, the basal pistillate part cylindrical to truncate-conical, green to orange, the apical staminate part longer than the pistillate part, clavate, white, with larger, more irregular, sterile flowers at the base, the sterile staminate part usually +- swollen and wider than the pistillate part; flowers unisexual, naked; staminate flowers consisting of 3 or 4 stamens united into a synandrium, the synandria truncate to somewhat rounded at apex, the connective of the anthers thick, dehiscent below the apex of the connective by a short slit, rounded or obtuse at the base; pistillate flowers connate, the ovary obovoid or oblong-obovoid, normally 2-celled (rarely 3- or 1-celled); ovules 1 (rarely 2) per cell, erect, anatropous; stigmas usually discoid or bilabiate, rarely orbicular or cup-shaped; fruits baccate, connate into an ovoid syncarp, this usually brown, sometimes white at maturity; seeds obovoid or ovoid; funicle short; testa smooth, thin, black or dark brown, shiny; endosperm lacking.