Hapale Schott.

Herbs, seasonally dormant or evergreen, small to medium sized, slender. Stems tuberous-stoloniferous with stolons terminating in further small, depressed-globose tubers. Leaves usually solitary, or few; petiole sheath short; leaf blade pale to deep green with or without silvery or paler variegation, cordate-sagittate, sagittate, or hastate, rarely elliptic and cuneate, primary lateral veins pinnate or mostly arising at petiole insertion, forming arching submarginal collective vein, 1 or 2 marginal veins also present; higher order venation reticulate. Inflorescences 1-5 per each floral sympodium, appearing with leaf; peduncle subequal to or longer than petioles, slender. Spathe slender, not distinctly constricted; tube persistent, very slender, tightly convolute around female flowers; limb erect to reflexed and ± revolute at anthesis, oblong-lanceolate, longer than tube, marcescent. Spadix subequal to or longer than spathe, slender; female zone adnate to spathe, few flowered (2-7), ± biseriate, separated from male zone by short sterile zone; male zone subulate to cylindric, fertile to apex or with a few sterile flowers at apex or with a long, terminal appendix [Hapaline appendiculata Ridley]. Flowers unisexual, naked. Gynoecium oblong to lageniform; ovary 1-loculed; ovule 1, anatropous; funicle very short; placenta parietal to subbasal (morphologically basal); stylar region very short; stigma subcapitate. Male flowers 3-androus; synandrium peltate, truncate, hexagonal, elongated in direction of spadix axis, shallow, stipitate; connective strongly dilated; thecae remote, subglobose, short, almost pendent from margin, dehiscing by pore; synandrodes with proximal ones very few, ± remote, apiculiform; distal ones very few, consisting of tiny, peltate synandrodes. Fruit an ellipsoid to globose berry; style persistent; pericarp thin, 1-seeded, white. Seed ellipsoid; testa smooth, very thin; embryo light green, ellipsoid, large; endosperm absent.

Six species: SE Asia; one species (endemic) in China.

(Authors: Li Heng (李恒 Li Hen); Peter C. Boyce)