Floral biology of Scaphochlamys (Zingiberaceae) focusing on Bornean taxa

Abstract

An overview of the floral biology including floral odour analyses of twenty‐two Bornean Scaphochlamys taxa and three ex Bornean Scaphochlamys taxa was undertaken. All Scaphochlamys species investigated bloom diurnally. Pollen is released gradually, either simultaneously with stigma secretion or later (mostly within one hour). Flowers of most Scaphochlamys species were found to emit a mild odour but a few are odourless. Stigmas and anther spurs (where present) differ among the taxa investigated. Natural fruit set percentages of all species investigated were very low, up to 14.29%. Scaphochlamys species are facultatively xenogamic as the pollen/ovule ratios (P/O ratios) were high. Analysis of floral odour revealed 102 identifiable floral volatile organic compounds (VOCs), representing 31.8% of the compounds found. The volatile fraction was characterized by the aliphatics class (21.5%), monoterpenes (3.4%), irregular terpenes (0.3%) and benzenoids and phenyl propanoids (0.6%). Two pollinator guilds were found: halictid bees and Amegilla bees.

Introduction

“…Wong Sin Yeng began work on Araceae in 2005, publishing her first taxonomic paper the following year. Wong's taxonomic and phylogenetic outputs have concentrated primarily on the Homalomenaeae and Schismatoglottideae (Wong et al 2010(Wong et al , 2013Low et al 2018), although her primary foci are the occurrence, morphological adaptations, categories, and evolution of rheophytism in the these tribes (Wong 2013;Boyce and Wong 2019), and the pollination biology for aroids (Hoe et al 2016(Hoe et al , 2018Low et al 2016;Chai and Wong 2019), Tacca (Chua et al 2020), and Scaphochlamys (Ooi and Wong 2020).…”