ARACEAE (Arum or Gabi Family)

Sister Clades
Wolffia
Wolffiella
Lemna
Landoltia
ARACEAE
(Arum
Family)

Lemnaceae
(Duckweed
Family)

Spirodela
Pistia

ARACEAE- a family of herbaceous monocotyledons distributed in tropical regions of

the world containing 105 genera and about 3,300 spp. The biggest number of species
came
from
South
America
(including
the
two
largest
genera, Anthurium and Philodendron) with over 1,500 species between them. South
East Asia tropics also are very rich in species having with them the large and culturally
important genera, Amorphophallus and Alocasia. Its habit ranges from evergreen to
seasonally dormant herbs, perennial, occasionally gigantic, climbing or subshrubby
hemiepiphytes, epiphytes, lithophytes, terrestrial, geophytes, helophytes, sometimes
rheophytes, true aquatics, and rarely free-floating.
Morphology
I.

II.

III.

IV.

Roots
adventitious and dimorphic roots are frequently seen in climbing
hemiepiphytes; specialized contractile roots are also present that functions
to avert the stem from rising too near to the soil surface
Stems
aerial and erect to climbing or creeping with very short (plant rosulate) to
very long (plant scandent) internodes, or subterranean and consisting of a
subglobose to depressed-globose tuber (sometimes turnip- or carrot-like or
irregular in shape) or horizontal to erect rhizome;
terrestrial plants and helophytes sometimes arborescent with massive stem
and terminal rosette of leaves or arborescent with a pseudostem of petiole
sheaths;
geophytes often with solitary leaf
Leaves
commonly arranged in spiral, occasionally distichous; differentiated into
petiole and expanded blade (excluding Gymnostachys and certain Biarum
species)
A. Petiole
o often as long as or longer than blade, usually smooth,
sometimes hairy, papillose, warty, prickly or aculeate
B. Leaf blade
o simple to compound, varies in shape usually ovate, oblong,
elliptic, hastate, sagittate, pinnate but rarely filiform and linear
Fruits
are likely to be baccate; one to many seeded

 are juicy berries, though seldom leathery and drier; berries are usually
red or orange
infructescence is cylindric or oftentimes globose
V.

Seeds
frequently entrenched in mucilaginous pulp (secreted by the ovular and
placental trichomes)
may contain a copious endosperm or little or no endosperm at all

VI.

Inflorescence and Floral Morphology

A. Flowers
flowers are typically enormous, minute, sessile in all genera (except
Pedicellarum), and lack floral bracts
a. Spathe
o can be very conspicuous and brightly colored, or small and
leaf-like
o the behavior can either act to completely enclose the
spadix, or to reflex in order to leave the spadix vividly
noticeable
b. Spadix
o bear unisexual or bisexual flowers
o Unisexual- flowers are typically arranged with the females at
the base of the spadix sporadically terminated by a sterile
appendix.
o Bisexual- flowers are uniformly arranged over the spadix and
subtended by reduced tepals termed a perigone.
c. Anthers- 2 to 4 celled
d. Ovary- sessile, 1 to 3 celled; ovules 1 or more
e. Pollen- found in monads, rarely found in tetrads; aperturate in
most bisexual-flowered genera, inaperturate in most unisexualflowered genera
B. Inflorescence
solitary, terminal or 2 to many in a synflorescence that frequently
appears to be axillary to sympodial leaf, containing of a spadix (spike)
of small flowers and subtended by a spathe (bract), commonly erect,
at times pendent

Key to some Genera of

Araceae
1. Coarse climbing vines having large, entire or pinnately lobed leaves.
2. Leaves are pale-green, mottled with yellowish-green or nearly white spots and
blotches; ovaries 1-celled, 1-ovuled.
1. Scindapsus
1. Erect plants, never climbing.
2. Plants free-floating aquatics; leaves rosulate, hairy; flowers unisexual, naked;
inflorescence with a single female flower and a few male flowers.
2. Pistia
2. Terrestrial plants.
3. Plants from very aromatic rootstocks; the leaves linear, flat, and equitant;
spadix solitary, pseudolateral and overtopped by a single, erect, leaf-like
spathe; flowers 3-merous, tepals 6.
3.
Acorus

3. Leaves and flowers borne at the same time; plants containing broad
simple leaves.
4. Ovaries 1-celled.
5. Ovules few to many.
6. Placentas parietal; ovules many.
7. Leaf blade entire or pinnatifid; female flowers without staminodes
(except single
small ones in Colocasia esculenta).
4. Colocasia
6. Placentas basal; ovules few.
5. Alocasia

1. SCINDAPSUS Schott
ECOLOGY: tropical humid forest or dry, deciduous or evergreen forest; climbing
hemiepiphytes, also creeping over rocks, often terrestrial when juvenile. LEAVES:
many, juvenile plants often of shingle (sand) form. PETIOLE: geniculate apically,
sheath usually broad. BLADE: always entire, elliptic or ovate to obovate, lanceolate,
acuminate, and rarely variegated; INFLORESCENCE: solitary. PEDUNCLE: shorter
than petiole. SPATHE: boat-shaped, gaping only slightly, deciduous. SPADIX: sessile
or nearly so, cylindric, densely many-flowered, a little shorter than spathe. FLOWERS:
bisexual, perigone absent. STAMENS: 4, free, filaments oblong, flattened, broadish,
connective slender, thecae oblong-ellipsoid, dehiscing by apical slit. POLLEN: fully
zonate, hamburger-shaped, medium-sized. GYNOECIUM: ovary sometimes short.
FRUIT: drupaceous, more or less united, often large . SEED: rounded, subreniform,
compressed, smooth, embryo curved, endosperm present. ETYMOLOGY: Greek
skindapsos, once utilized for an ivy-like plant. DISTRIBUTION: 36 spp.; tropical Asia,
Malay Archipelago, Melanesia, Pacific.
2. PISTIA Linnaeus
ECOLOGY: tropical wetlands; floating aquatic in open, tranquil, freshwater
habitats. HABIT: small, free-floating evergreen herb with pendent feathery roots,
stem very short. LEAVES: several in a rosette, densely pubescent. PETIOLE: very
short, almost absent, sheath very short. BLADE: somewhat spongy, obovate-cuneate
to obovate-oblong, apically rounded; midrib absent. INFLORESCENCE: solitary, very
small, much shorter than leaves. PEDUNCLE: very short, pubescent. SPADIX: adnate
to the back of the spathe, free above. SPATHE: small, tubular below, open above.
FLOWERS: unisexual, perigone absent. POLLEN: inaperturate, ellipsoid-elongate to
-oblong, medium-sized. MALE FLOWER: few, sessile, connate anthers beneath the
apex of the spadix. FEMALE FLOWER: a solitary, conical-ovoid, 1-celled ovary;
ovules many. BERRY: thin-walled, utricular, several-seeded, ellipsoid, irregularly
breaking up and decaying to release seeds. SEED: barrel-shaped, thicker and with
operculum at micropylar end, embryo obovoid, endosperm copious. ETYMOLOGY:
Greek pister (hollow, trough, in the sense of a drinking trough). DISTRIBUTION: 1 sp.;
pantropical.
3. ACORUS Linnaeus
ECOLOGY: temperate to tropical wetlands, helophyte, marshes, streams,
ponds, swampy sites, pastures, meadows. HABIT: herbs, much-branched. LEAVES:
distichous, not differentiated into petiole and blade; primary veins parallel, higher
order venation parallel. INFLORESCENCE: solitary, terminal, borne laterally on leaflike scape, continuation shoot arising in axil of leaf preceding spathe. SPATHE: much

longer than spadix, erect, persistent, appearing merely as a vertical extension of the
leaf-like peduncle. SPADIX: cylindric, dense, sessile, flowering at the base first.
FLOWERS: bisexual, perigoniate, densely arranged, bractless. STAMENS: 6, in 2
whorls of 3, free, filaments linear-oblong. POLLEN: ellipsoid, small. GYNOECIUM:
obconic-cylindric, slightly exceeding tepals, 23-locular, ovules several per locule,
placenta apical, stigma minute, sessile. BERRY: oblong-obovoid with thin, leathery
pericarp, enclosed by tepals. SEED: oblong to ellipsoid, testa light brown, long
integumentary trichomes present or absent, embryo axile, cylindric or conoid
perisperm present, endosperm copious. ETYMOLOGY: akoron, an ancient Greek plant
name. DISTRIBUTION: 2(4) spp.; temperate to subtropical Asia and North America.
4. COLOCASIA Linnaeus
ECOLOGY: tropical humid forest habitats; geophytes, terrestrial or helophytes,
wet places, along streams and ponds, forest floor in leaf litter, between rocks. HABIT:
small, medium-sized or gigantic, seasonally dormant or evergreen herbs, stem either
a hypogeal, subglobose or subcylindric tuber. LEAVES: ovate, peltate at the cordate
base, stoutly petioled. PETIOLE: sheath rather long. BLADE: peltate, posterior lobes
rounded, shortly to almost entirely connate; basal ribs well- developed, primary lateral
veins pinnate, higher order venation reticulate. INFLORESCENCE: 1many in each
floral sympodium, appearing with the leaves. PEDUNCLE: much shorter than petiole.
SPATHE: erect, peduncled, the tube thick, accrescent, persistent, constricted at the
mouth, the limb erect, elongated, deciduous. SPADIX: shorter than the spathe,
slender or stout, the male and female flowers usually separated by interposed flat
neuter ones; appendage cylindric, subulate, or none. FLOWERS: unisexual, perigone
absent. MALE FLOWER: 36-androus, stamens connate, thecae lateral, oblong-linear,
dehiscing by api-cal pore. POLLEN: extruded in strands, inaperturate, ellipsoid-oblong
or spherical. FEMALE FLOWER: ovaries ovoid, 1-celled; ovules many, orthotropous.
BERRY: greenish to whitish, small, oblong, many-seeded. SEED: ovoid to ellipsoid
testa thickish, costate, embryo axile, cylindric, endosperm copious. DISTRIBUTION: 8
spp.; tropical Asia, Malay Archipelago. ETYMOLOGY: classical name, Greek kolokasia,
from an old Middle Eastern name qolqas.
5. ALOCASIA Schott
ECOLOGY: tropical and subtropical humid forest; geophytes or terrestrial, forest
floor, humus deposits on rocks, usually in deep shade, sometimes in exposed areas of
forest regrowth. HABIT: medium-sized to rarely arborescent and gigantic, seasonally
dormant to evergreen herbs, stem thick, often hypogeal, sometimes stoloniferous and
bulbiferous, rarely elongated and creeping. LEAVES: oblong to ovate, base deeply
cordate, peltate or not, entire or variously lobed. SPATHE: erect, peduncled, the tube
ovoid, the limb usually elongated, deciduous. SPADIX: shorter than the spathe, the
male and female flowers usually separated by interposed neuter ones. PETIOLE: long,
sometimes glandular, sheath relatively long, sometimes deciduous. BLADE:
sometimes pubescent, juvenile blade peltate, at maturity usually sagittate, peltate in
some species, margin entire, sinuate or slightly-deeply pinnatifid, posterior divisions
ovate or triangular. FLOWERS: unisexual, perigone absent. MALE FLOWER: stamens
connate, rarely linear, thecae oblong to linear-oblong, lateral, dehiscing by apical
pore. POLLEN: extruded in strands. FEMALE FLOWER: ovaries 1-celled; ovules few,
basal, erect. BERRY: few-seeded. ETYMOLOGY: Greek a- (not) and Colocasia, the
latter with- out its first syllable, implying a genus close to but different from Colocasia.
DISTRIBUTION: 6070 spp.; tropical Asia, Australasia, Malay Archipelago, Melanesia.