How we work

Aroid history is scattered across nineteenth-century nursery catalogues, society journals, herbarium sheets, and decades of listserv correspondence. Much of what circulates online is repetition without a source. Aroidpedia goes back to the record.

Sources

Primary sources, cited and linked. Catalogues, protologues, and journal articles are given so readers can check the original.

Provenance

Record distinguished from tradition. Where an origin story rests on recollection rather than documentation, we say so.

Uncertainty

Stated, not smoothed over. Where a plant’s identity or name is unresolved, the page says as much.

Nomenclature

Species under the ICN, cultivars under the ICNCP — including where a familiar trade name turns out never to have been validly established.

Corrections

Errors get fixed, and substantive ones are noted.

Scope

The long-term aim is comprehensive coverage of the family. In practice, priority goes to the genera, species, and hybrids most often found in cultivation — those are the plants most burdened by bad information. Alocasia and Amorphophallus are active.

Contribute or correct

Contributors are credited, and photographers retain credit for their images. If you grow something well, hold archival material, or have found an error here, it is worth hearing about.