棒头南星 bang tou nan xing

Tuber subglobose or ovoid-globose, 2-4 cm in diam. Cataphylls green, to 20 cm, membranous, apex obtuse or acute. Leaves 2; petiole green, 40-60 cm, proximal half sheathing; leaf blade pedate; leaflets (7-)11-15, sessile, oblong or oblanceolate, papery, base cuneate, margin entire, apex abruptly acuminate and caudate; central 5 leaflets nearly equal, 10-19 × 3-6 cm, outward gradually smaller, outermost one 2-4 × 0.5-1.5 cm; rachis between leaflets 5-15 mm. Spathe green, sometimes purplish, with white stripes or not, 7.5-16 cm in total; tube cylindric or narrowly funnelform, 3.5-8 × 1.3-2.5 cm, throat obliquely truncate or rounded, not recurved; limb oblong, 5-8 × 3-3.5 cm, apex acute. Spadix unisexual; male cylindric, 1.2-1.7 cm × ca. 3 mm; synandria purple; anthers 2 or 3; thecae globose, dehiscing by apical pores; female conic or elliptic, 2-2.5 cm × 7-8 mm; ovary greenish, obovoid; ovules 3 or 4; stigma subglobose, ca. 1 mm. Appendix sessile, green to purple, narrowly cylindric, 2.6-7 cm, slender, ca. 1.5 mm in diam., basal 2-3 cm sparsely covered with acute and hooked neuter flowers (1-3 mm), apex abruptly swollen into a clavate head 3-10 × 2-4 mm, densely clavate-echinate. Fl. Apr-Jun.

● Bamboo thickets, broad-leaved forests; 600-1400 m. Chongqing, N Guizhou, W Hubei, Sichuan.