Cryptocoryne cordata is a species complex that ranges from Southern Thailand down to the Eastern side of the Malayan peninsula, as well as parts of Borneo. The large geographical spread (and the isolation caused by the submergence of the Sunda shelf, and belatedly, human roads and development) inevitably means that localised populations (and their smaller, skewed gene pools, as well as the genus's propensity for triploidy and natural intrageneric hybridisation) are in the midst of developing traits that distinguish the plants from the original founders and may well result in allopatric speciation in the future.
C. cordata var. cordata is the most well-known of the complex, with bright yellow to dark brown limbs on a white spathe, and broad, leathery leaves, which can be a rich wine red to mature purple on the underside. In C. cordata var. diderici, found in Sumatera, the limb is reddish purple, while the two Borneo members, C. cordata var. grabowskii and C. cordata var. zonata are characterised by red dots in the throat and a purple zone on the upper part of the kettle respectively.
Jan Bastmeijer sent out a festive email which also celebrates the resolved synonymity between the C. cordata var. grabowskii from Matang near Kuching in Sarawak and the Cryptocoryne grandis collected by Ridley (some crazy ang moh who introduced a Brazilian tree to these parts) in 1905. Kuchingite Mike Lo is credited with the recent fieldwork that provided specimens to help clarify these taxonomical questions. That's one Ridle solved, but the new year still offers a multitude of unclassified plants and vanishing habitats that tax the plant systematist and all who treasure the swamps of Borneo as havens of biodiversity rather than wastelands of volatile peat.
Meanwhile, Borneo continues to present bewildering instances of fragile diversity in just a single genus of aquatic aroids....
Comments