The aroid family Araceae comprises 119 genera and 6550 species (Mabberley 2017) of erect herbs and woody climbers cosmopolitan and pantropical in distribution.  It includes major food crops such as taro, and ornamentals such as anthurium.  Based upon recent DNA analysis, APG IV and Mabberley (2017) now treat the family Lemnaceae as the subfamily Lemnoideae in the Araceae, a move that is morphologically problematical since the members of the former are very different morphologically from the rest of Araceae.  The traditional family Lemnaceae is retained as separate here (see Lemnaceae below).  Parts of the family were revised by Nicholson (1978, 1979).  Two native Araceae genera with one native species each, and one other genus with one naturalized alien species, occur in Samoa.  Additionally, taro (Colocasia esculenta), giant taro (Alocasia macrorrhizos), and giant swamp taro (Cyrtosperma chamissonis) are sometimes found as a relicts of cultivation in addition to being cultivated.  

Key to Araceae Genera of Samoa

1. Plants trunk-climbing vines; native species

2. Leaves ovate, spirally arranged; margins spit or fenestrate at maturity..….... Epipremnum
2. Leaves elliptic, distichous, margins entire at maturity ….……………….. Rhaphidophora

1. Plants herbaceous, not climbing; alien species ………………………….…... Amorphophallus