African evergreen

Syngonium podophyllum, known as the arrowhead vine or African evergreen (a misleading common name, as it is in fact native to the American tropics), is a climbing perennial herbaceous vine of the aroid family Araceae. It produces long fleshy stems that scramble and climb tree trunks by means of aerial roots, reaching several metres in length in the wild, though cultivated indoor specimens rarely exceed 1.5 m. The leaves are markedly heterophyllous: juvenile leaves are simply arrow-shaped with a sagittate base, but in mature climbing plants they become pedately divided into three to eleven oblong segments, attaining up to 30 cm long. Wild plants have plain dark-green foliage, while many cultivated forms show cream, white, pink or yellow variegation. Inflorescences, rarely produced indoors, consist of a small greenish-white spadix enclosed by a pale yellow-green spathe. The species is native to tropical Latin America from Mexico to Bolivia and is widely naturalised in the West Indies, Florida, Texas and Hawaii. All parts contain calcium oxalate raphides and are irritant and toxic if ingested or contacted.