高原南星 gao yuan nan xing

Plants dioecious. Tuber depressed globose, 2-4 cm in diam. Cataphylls 2 or 3, green to purple, 16-20 cm. Leaves 1 or 2; petiole green, 15-50 × 1-1.5 cm, basal part forming pseudostem; leaf blade 3-foliolate; leaflets sessile or shortly petiolulate; central leaflet ovate, rhombic, or elliptic, (7-)9-12 × 3-11 cm, base cuneate, apex acute to acuminate; lateral leaflets obliquely ovate or rhombic, as large as central leaflet. Peduncle green and unmarked, shorter than petioles, 10-26 cm. Spathe green, rarely dark purple, with green or white lines; tube broadly cylindric, (3-)4-8 × 1.5-2.5 cm, smooth inside, throat margins obliquely truncate, not auriculate; limb dark purple, yellowish green, or green, 7-16 × 2-6.5 cm, apex acuminate-caudate into a tail 2-20 cm. Spadix unisexual; female zone ca. 1.5 cm; ovary obovoid; style short; stigma small; male zone ca. 2 cm; synandria of 4 stamens, yellow, dehiscing by horseshoe-shaped slit. Appendix dark purple, narrowly flagellate, 15-60 cm in total, proximally swollen fusiform or cylindric, smooth, distally curving and exserted from tube, gradually drawn into flagellum, sigmoid and pendulous in distal part. Fl. May, ?Sep. 2n = 28.

Mountain slopes, grassy places; 2600-3400 m. S Xizang, Yunnan [India (Darjeeling, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand), Kashmir, Nepal].