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  [Aroid-l] Fw: Schismatoglottis species
From: botanist at malesiana.com (Peter Boyce) on 2008.06.24 at 01:09:49(17929)

Hi George, Christopher & folks,

There are two easy ways to distinguish non-flowering Homalomena from Schismatoglottis. First is that all Homalomena have striate higher order (2 & 3-order) venation (see attached image) and thus the leaves resemble those of Philodendron (to which Homalomena is related)

The second is that the vegetative tissues of almost all Homalonena, and certainly all that could be mistaken for a Schismatoglottis, are strongly aromatic. The Asian species smell of a variety of things, including lime oil, ginger, mango peel and pine or juniper resin; the neotropical species mostly (all - Tom?) smell of anise.

There is a minor caveat on the smell character: there are two complexes of Schismatoglolttis with aromatic foliage (the nervosa and multinervia complexes). However, almost none of these are in general cultivation and even when they do appear in collections the non-striate higher order venation immediately distinguishes them.

Peter

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