Philodendron hederaceum var. hederaceum (Araceae)
Hemiepiphyte; internodes 10--25 cm long, 1--2.5(3.5) cm diam., weakly flattened on one side, medium green, minutely speckled to striate or smooth when fresh but drying minutely ridged, greenish; cataphylls 6--10 cm long, unribbed, weakly 1-ribbed or bluntly to sharply 2-ribbed, deciduous intact; LEAVES: petioles (6)10--27(33) cm long, 6--10 mm diam.; blades (11)16--40(50) cm long, 8--24(34) cm wide; upper surface medium to dark green, velvety when juvenile, drying brown to greenish brown, lower surface medium green, glossy, drying gray-green to yellow-green; primary lateral veins 2--6 per side, departing midrib at a 35--55º angle. INFLORESCENCES with peduncle (2)4--16 cm long; spathe 9--17(20 cm long, spathe usually green, sometimes yellowish white, spathe blade sometimes tinged purple outside; spathe tube dark, sometimes tinged reddish maroon outside; spadix stipitate to 5 mm, 12--18 cm long; ovary 4--6-locular, 20--25 ovules per locule. INFRUCTESCENCES with many seeds per locule.
The range of P. hederaceum var. hederaceum is essentially that of the species. It is the most widespread taxon of Philodendron and, indeed, perhaps of all neotropical Araceae, ranging from San Luis Potosí State in Mexico to the Greater and Lesser Antilles, and down both slopes of the Andes, east to the Guianas and south to Brazil and Bolivia. In Central America, the variety occurs on both slopes of the Continental Divide.
It occurs principally in Tropical moist forest but ranges into Premontane wet forest and even Tropical wet forest. A single sterile preadult collection from Tropical wet forest transition to Premontane wet forest in Bajo Calima (Bay 237) is apparently also this species.