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History

Philodendrons are known to have been collected from the wild as early as 1644 by Georg Marcgraf, but the first partly successful scientific attempt to collect and classify the genus was done by Charles Plumier. Plumier collected approximately six species from the islands of Martinique, Hispaniola, and St. Thomas. Since then, many exploration attempts have been made to collect new species by others. These include those by N.J. Jacquin who collected new species in the West Indies, Colombia, and Venezuela. At this time in history, the names of the philodendrons they were discovering were being published with the genus name Arum, since most aroids were considered to belong to this same genus. The genus Philodendron had not yet been created. Throughout the late 17th, 18th century, and early 19th centuries, many plants were removed from the genus Arum and placed into newly created genera in an attempt to improve the classification. Heinrich Wilhelm Schott addressed the problem of providing improved taxonomy and created the genus Philodendron and described it in 1829. The genus was first spelled as 'Philodendrum', but in 1832, Schott published a system for classifying plants in the family Araceae titled Meletemata Botanica in which he provided a method of classifying philodendrons based on flowering characteristics. In 1856, Schott published a revision of his previous work titled Synopsis aroidearum, and then published his final work Prodromus Systematis Aroidearum in 1860, in which he provided even more details about the classification of Philodendron and described 135 species.