乌蒙南星 wu meng nan xing

Arisaema maireanum Engler; A. wumengense H. Li.

Plants dioecious. Tuber renewed seasonally, dark brown outside, whitish inside, depressed globose, ca. 3 × 4-5 cm. Cataphylls 2 or 3, greenish with pink and whitish blotches or whitish with brownish apex, 17-18 × ca. 2.7 cm, papery, apex obtuse. Leaves 2; petiole green but sheathing part often with dark brown short stripes, 30-40 cm, proximal 25-30 cm sheathing into pseudostem, encircled in cataphylls; leaf blade pedate, 5-7-foliolate or palmate-digitate; leaflets sessile, base connected and closed, light green abaxially, dull green adaxially; central leaflet subsessile, elliptic to broadly oblong, base acute, apex acute or acuminate; lateral leaflets as central one but somewhat smaller, outermost ones ca. 8 × 3 cm. Peduncle green, unmarked or with whitish dots, usually shorter than petioles, 33-36 cm. Spathe emerging from pseudostem; tube greenish outside, white inside, unmarked, cylindric, ca. 4 × 1.4-2 cm, smooth, throat slightly recurved, not auriculate; limb white, unmarked, narrowly ovate, 9-11 × 3.7-5.5 cm, apex acute or acuminate, slightly incurved. Spadix unisexual; female zone greenish, conic, ca. 1.5 × 1 cm; ovary obovoid; style pyramidal, short; stigma small, papillose; male zone cylindric, 1.5-2 cm × ca. 3 mm; synandria dense, subsessile; anthers 2 or 3, yellowish, thecae globose, dehiscing by apical pores. Appendix sessile, dark green throughout or whitish in basal 2-3 cm, green in middle ca. 1.5 cm, dull brownish purple distally, cylindric, narrowed distally, ca. 14 cm in total, 3-5 mm in diam., part exserted from spathe tube recurved and pendulous, apex filiform. Fl. Jun-Jul.

● Thickets, grassy slopes, riversides; 1900-2000 m. S Sichuan (Huidong), Yunnan (Huize, Luquan).