Philodendron squamiferum??

From: Steve Marak <samarak at arachne.uark.edu> on 1998.09.13 at 19:13:32(2594) While attempting to research this plant, I have got myself thoroughly confused. I'm sure Tom - if he's not off doing field work somewhere - can resolve parts of the confusion, but I also have some cultural questions, so I thought I'd post this to the whole list. In August 1994, according to my records, Tom and Petra gave me two cuttings of what was labeled as Philodendron squamiferum. It's a very pretty plant, with shiny green leaves of a shape hard to describe but very attractive, the "hairy" petioles which are darkish at the leaf end and light at the stem end, and it is either much smaller than a lot of the things Tom collects or doesn't mind being kept small. Both cuttings rooted easily and have been crawling around one end of my small greenhouse ever since, leaves turning up in odd places from time to time. A couple of weeks ago I noticed something different about one plant and realized that it was about to flower. A few days ago, though, the stem of the inflorescence began to yellow, and sure enough it aborted without opening. Dissection showed it was indeed an inflorescence. My first question, directed to all growers of this or similar species, is: is this a common thing or related to my culture, which is very casual? I don't recall it happening with aroids before - usually when they decide to flower, they do so. In either case, suggestions are welcome. As I often do, I went searching on the Internet for information about P. squamiferum. I'm used to getting no results on an initial high-level search and quickly moved on to the Tropicos database at MoBot and the Gray Index at Harvard. I expected a quick resolution at MoBot, given that Tom's collection was my source, but found nothing on P. squamiferum. A search on "Philodendron squam" returned only P. squamicaule. I scanned the list of collections for that species but didn't match Tom's collection number for my plant (71914). A look at Harvard turned up P. squamicaule, P. squamiferum, and P. squamipetiolatum, with an entry under P. squamiferum for variety aceriferum. Back to Tropicos at MoBot, where a search for "Philodendron acer" did indeed show P. squamiferum v. aceriferum, but no collections were listed. The second question, of course, is what is the currently favored name for the plant I have? Incidentally, if the answer is that I have P. aceriferum or P. squamiferum v. aceriferum, both names attributed to Schott, I must beg to differ if he meant the acer in the name to refer to the shape of the leaf. To me, those leaves resemble maple leaves only in the same way that topologists think a donut and a coffee cup are the same. Steve +More -- Steve Marak -- samarak@arachne.uark.edu

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