This plant shape reminds me of something, but I can't think of what. And I don't remember seeing leaves with this shape. Is there even a name for this cup-shape? This was taken long the road between garden areas at the Ho'omaluhia Botanical Garden on Oahu. Photos I took before and after this had labels saying they were from Australia, so this might also be from there.
Polyscias scutellaria (Syn. Nothopanax scutellarium)? http://saintlucianplants.com/cultivated/polyscut/polyscut.html
Wow, Araliaceae. Thanks, saltcedar. I'd like to think that's why it looked familiar. Reading about this plant brings up many questions. For one thing, most of the hits on that name bring up Polyscias balfouriana or Aralia balfouriana as a synonym, which, with its flat leaves (common name: dinner plate plant), I wouldn't have recognized as the same plant. Even Forest & Kim Starr's photos show what I'd have thought was the dinner plate version. Same for the Cook Islands Biodiversity page, which adds some more synonyms, and gives the source location as the Solomons and Vanuatu. One Philippine Medicinal Plants site gives the spanish name "Platito" (platter, dish, saucer), for Nothopanax scutellarium, but the photos it shows are this plant (or this version of the plant). The Philippine plant site says simple leaves, but eFloras indicates that they're compound ("leaflets 1 (leaves unifoliolate), 3, or 5 (rarely 2 or 4)"). I was going to say in my posting that I couldn't make sense of the leaf arrangement. I'm not recognizing any of the words in the eFloras description referring to a saucer shape. Junglekeeper, maybe incurvate, but that term doesn't bring up any plant photo hits, so maybe not commonly used? Bjo, thanks for the definition. Shields are flat, right? One of the common names is shield plant. Maybe this thing is just supposed to have flat leaves, and when it has saucer-shaped leaves, that's not due to anything in the make-up of the plant that would allow it to be given a different name.
At this location in Hawaii it's not frost, nor in the botanical garden is it likely to be herbicide, so there's a particular bacteria that would cause this (must I call it?) deformity? In several places around the world? There were no flat leaves at all, so the bacteria would have to be in the stems or roots to affect the whole treelet (as I saw it called twice) uniformly? And one that stays with it when its propagated. A very attractive deformity.
Hi, not exactly an expert on shields, but surely a curved surface (pointing out) will help deflect arrows, spears swords etc ! From my reading, the curved leaves are the normal wild form of this plant and other shapes and arrangements are selected horticultural forms. This formal paper on the taxonomy suggests this: Stone, B (1965) "Notes on the type species of Polyscias J.R. and G. Forst. (Araliaceae)" Taxon Vol 14,p281 - 285 "leaves generally unifoliate and concave" and later in the same paper "....the very distinctive concave or bowl-like unifoliate leaves..." Brian (safely ensconced in an armchair with no need of a scutella)
I didn't say it was affected by any of those three agents - I said the deformity had the same appearance. It could perfectly well be genetic.
Great. I'm happy to see this. And also happy to see that at least Stone seems to think that Polyscias pinnata and Polyscias scutellaria can be distinguished, by their flowers no less. Here's a link to the Stone article. "Bowl-like" - that's the word I was looking for! If I were selecting horticultural forms for ornamental plantings, this is the one I'd select. There is a beta version of JSTOR that lets people register and read up to three articles for free.
Is it possible these are juvenile leaves, the leaf form changing as the plant matures? It is a stunning plant. Thanks for posting Wendy. Just browsed through Wikimedia/species. None of the plants illustrated there have this bowl-like feature.
