Pothos

Pothos L., Sp. Pl. ed.1 (1753) 968 & ed.2 (1763) 1373 – 1374, 1675; Lour., Fl. Cochin. (1790) 532;
Schott in Schott & Endl., Melet. Bot. (1832) 21; Endl., Gen. Pl., 3 (1837) 239; Kunth, Enum. Pl., 3 (1841) 65 – 66; Schott, Aroid. (1856 – 1857) 21 – 25, t.31 – 56 & Gen. Aroid. (1858) 95 & Prodr. Syst. Aroid. (1860) 558 – 575; Benth., Fl. Hongkong. (1861) 344 – 345; Engl., in A. & C. DC, Monogr. Phanerogam., 2 (1879) 78 – 94; Benth. & Hook.f., Gen. Pl., 3(2) (1883): 999; Engl. & in Engl. & Prantl, Naturl. Pflanzenfam. (1889) 113 – 114 & in Engl., Pflanzenr. 21 (IV.23B) (1905) 21 – 44; Gagnep. in Lecomte, Fl. Gén.l’Indo-Chine, 6 (1942) 1082 – 1090; F.C. How, Fl. Kwangchow (Canton) [= Guangzhou] (1956) 693 – 694; P.H. HÈ, Cây-cÀ Miê__ Nam Vi_t-nam [Fl. South Vietnam – in Vietnamese] (1960) 690, pl.267 pr. pte; Fl. Hainan., 4 (1977) 130 – 131; S.Y. Hu, Dansk Bot. Arkiv, 23(4) (1968) 413 – 414; C.Y. Wu & H. Li, in C.Y. Wu & H. Li, Fl. Yunnan., 2 (1979) 740 – 744; H. Li in C.Y. Wu & H. Li, Fl. Reip. Pop. Sinicae 13(2) (1979) 15 – 21, pl.3; J. Zhong, Ill. Limestone Mount. Pl. Guangxi (1982) 291 – 292; M.L. Sai in Y.K. Li et al., Fl. Guizhou., 6 (1987) 545 – 549; P.H. HÈ, CâaycÀ Vi_tnam [Ill. Fl. Vietnam – in Vietnamese & English], 3(1) (1993) 420 – 423, pl.8251 – 8262. — Type: Pothos scandens L. [Tapanava Adanson, Fam. 2 (1763) 470, nom. illeg. — Type: Based on the same type as Pothos.] Tapanava Raf., Fl. Tellur. 4 (1837) 14. — Type: T. chinensis Raf. [= Pothos chinensis (Raf.) Merr.]
Goniurus Presl, Epimel. Bot. (1851, ‘1849’) 244. — Type: G. luzonensis Presl [= Pothos luzonensis (Presl) Schott] [Potha O. Kuntze, Rev. Gen. 2 (1891) 742, orth. var.]

Small to very large, very slender to robust, probably rarely secondarily hemiepiphytic (see Croat 1990; Putz & Holbrook 1986), root climbing, homeo- or heterophyllous, tough, fibrous lianes, usually with clearly differentiated, adherent, physiognomically monopodial (see Boyce 1998) non-flowering and free, sympodial or physiognomically monopodial flowering shoots, the latter often highly ramified; seedling, where known, a cataphyll-bearing but otherwise leafless, photosynthesising thread-like eocaul; adult plants often producing flagelliform, leafless (cataphyll-bearing), skototropic, foraging shoots; juvenile plants sometimes shingle-leaved (subg. AlloPothos; juveniles not described for most species and this feature not yet reported for many Thai and Indochinese Pothos); internodes (except at the beginning of branches) much longer than thick, nodes on free shoots occasionally bearing spines [modified rudimentary roots according to Hay (1995)], this feature absent from species in review area; leaf blades simple, entire, very narrowly lanceolate to broadly ovate, often asymmetrical (subg. AlloPothos), with reticulate venation, the primary lateral veins on each side of the midrib traversed within the margin by one or more intramarginal veins running ± from the base and about midway along the midrib to the apex or first to the distal margins and then to the apex; petiole either with a narrow, ± clasping sheath and a conspicuous apical geniculum (subg. AlloPothos), or broad, flattened and lamina-like with a small apical articulation, the leaf then resembling that of some Citrus (subg. Pothos); inflorescences occasionally solitary and terminal on leafy branches, more usually arranged on lateral short shoots bearing cataphylls, the short shoots usually simple with a single inflorescence, sometimes elaborated by sympodial branching into usually leafless, sometimes highly complex, compact or lax synflorescences bearing two to many inflorescences flowering in series, synflorescences borne along or at the end of leafy branches or, when present, on older leafless parts of the stem, sometimes arising from there; spathe mostly rather inconspicuous (exceptions in the review area include, e.g., P. kingii), ovate to lorate, opening wide and held away from the spadix, often fully reflexed, green to dirty white or yellow or deep purple; spadix sessile or stipitate, tapering-cylindrical to spherical; flowers bisexual, with a perianth of usually 6, rarely 4, free tepals or the perianth completely united and the flowers sunken in pits on the spadix with the perianth resembling a centrally perforated operculum over the pit (this condition not occurring in the review area); stamens 6, rarely 4, with flattened filaments and extrorse dehiscence, thecae elongate to globose; ovary trilocular, the locules uniovulate, ovules anatropous on an axile placenta at the base
of the septum; stigma punctiform, discoid-hemispheric or umbonate, mostly sessile; fruit a 1 – 3-seeded berry ripening dark green through yellow to variously red, individually distinct and, relative to spadix, very large; seed large, exalbuminous, testa smooth; embryo macropodous. Pollen monosulcate, ellipsoid-oblong, small [mean 21 µm., range 16 – 25 µm. (Grayum 1984)], exine foveolate to reticulate or subrugulate, muri-psilate or minutely tuberculate. 2n = 24, 36 (Petersen 1989).

Distribution — Approximately 70 species distributed from Madagascar to Vanuatu and from China (as far north as Hubei) to Australia (as far south as New South Wales).
Habitat — Bole climbing, occasionally lithophytic, root-climbing lianes or rarely secondary hemiepiphytes in low to upper-mid-elevation tropical or subtropical seasonal to perhumid evergreen forest.