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Arrowhead vine (Syngonium podophyllum)

Goosefoot-plant or arrowhead vine (Syngonium podophyllum) is a plant species, having arrow-shaped leaves with three alternating lobes that have size, color and shape that vary with age and variety is Syngonium podophyllum var. albolineatum, Syngonium podophyllum var. oerstedianum and Syngonium podophyllum var. peliocladum.

S. podophyllum grows on the surface or climbs. Widely cultivated as an ornamental plant in many tropical countries and has at least 10 cultivars. The main difference is in the position and extent of the cream or white. Some leaves are almost entirely white, pink or yellow.

Dlium Arrowhead vine (Syngonium podophyllum)

Young leaves have a simple and intact shape, a convoluted pulse or a silvery-white center that is bounded by green. Mature leaves are compound in color, dark green, segmented into three leaflets and grow with 5-9 leaflets as they age.

Leaves and stems contain poisonous milk gums. Leaflets are generally dark green at the top and pale green at the bottom. It has 4-11 spadix which grow on leaf axils, each consisting of 6-9 tubular flowers, green, covered in creamy white to green leaves.

The fruit is red to reddish orange with many black or brown seeds in a soft grayish pulp. But it is very rare to bear fruit even in its original range. Seedlings have one to several simple leaves in sagittate while mature plants have very varied leaf compounds.

Arrowhead vine requires moist soil, good and fertile drainage on sandy and loamy soils in pH 5.5-6.5. Plants prefer shady conditions in tropical forests and premontane wet forests at altitudes up to 1000 m but more abundant at 100-500 m.



Goosefoot-plant reproduces almost entirely vegetatively from a single node because it rarely produces viable seeds in the original range. Many specimens are sterile and have no flowers. But in Sumatra many are found to be flowering and fruitful which indicates that there are effective pollinators present.

S. podophyllum can form dense populations that replace the surrounding vegetation, have the ability to spread under the shade of intact forests, form solid mats on the forest floor and climb trees that give heavier weights so that they are more susceptible to falling by the wind.

Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Monocots
Order: Alismatales
Family: Araceae
Genus: Syngonium
Species: S. podophyllum

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