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Chinese Plant Names | Family List | Araceae | Amorphophallus

Amorphophallus hirtus N. E. Brown

硬毛磨芋

Description from Flora of China

Tuber whitish, turning grayish brown upon exposure, globose or depressed globose, 2-9 cm high, 3-15 cm in diam., weighing up to ca. 1500 g, seasonally producing numerous thin, rhizomatous offset tubers, these to 3 × ca. 1 cm. Leaf solitary; petiole dark green with numerous tiny, blackish green spots or with larger, ± diamond-shaped, pale grayish green spots, these filled with numerous dark green, elongate dots, 20-100 cm, 1-2.6 cm in diam. at base, turgid, glabrous; leaf blade 30-120 cm in diam., highly dissected; rachises only in distal half of blade winged, wings sinuous; leaflets adaxially dark emerald green with a pinkish violet margin, ± obovate or elliptic-oval, 5.5-11 × 2.5-4.5 cm, ± fleshy, long acuminate; venation impressed adaxially. Inflorescence solitary, long pedunculate; peduncle colored as petiole, 38-125 cm, 1-4 cm in diam. at base. Spathe strongly convolute at base, outside pale green, faintly flushed with purple or dark grayish green with numerous pale whitish green spots, proximal ones confluent, veins dark green, inside blackish maroon, campanulate, constricted between base and limb, broadly triangular, 13-53 × 12-45 cm, covered with numerous shortly ridgelike, laterally compressed, fleshy warts, base obliquely urceolate, thickly walled, apex acute; limb horizontally spreading or obliquely upturned, outside pale green, flushed with purple-brown or dark grayish green with angulate, whitish green spots and margins dirty purple, without spots, inside ± maroon, flushed with green or with numerous small, rounded, sometimes confluent, whitish greenish spots, veins maroon, margin undulate. Spadix emitting a strong smell of old socks or strong compost, ± stipitate, much longer than spathe, 31-88.5 cm, stipe 0.2-1 cm, female and male zones separated by a narrow sterile zone; female zone slightly obconic or cylindric, 1.6-6.5 cm, 1.1-3.5 cm in diam. at base, 1.2-3.7 cm in diam. at apex, flowers lax; ovary: basal half white, apical half blackish maroon, ± globose, ca. 2.5 mm high, ca. 2.5 mm in diam., orbicular in cross section, ± gradually tapering to style, 2-loculed, with 1 basal ovule per locule; style maroon, thick, ca. 1 × 1.5 mm; stigma ± pyramidal, orbicular in cross section, ca. 1.8 mm high, ca. 2.5 mm in diam., shallowly 2(or 3)-lobed, lobes pale olive-green, rounded, scabrous; sterile flowers between male and female zone consisting of 1-7 staminodes, these consisting of a swollen, often depressed, white base and a purple hair 5-10 mm; male zone urceolate, terete or slightly laterally compressed, distal margin straight or very irregular, 3-9 cm, 0.9-3.7 cm in diam. at base, 2-7 cm in diam. at apex, flowers congested, with scattered, purple hairs between; male flowers consisting of 3-6 stamens; stamens very shallowly hemispheric, ca. 2 mm, some uppermost stamens intermediate with hairs on appendix, carrying a short hair on connective or reduced to a slightly concave, broad base, carrying a hair (staminode); filaments short, ca. 0.5 mm, connate; anthers ca. 1.5 × 3-3.5 mm, polygonal in cross section, apex very shallowly rounded, ivory-white, producing a clear fluid from top during female anthesis; connective brownish; pores apical, elongate, oval after anthesis; appendix very narrowly conic, 25.5-73 cm, 2-7 cm in diam. at base, entirely purple or with numerous dirty greenish, small spots, with numerous laxly disposed hairs, these directed perpendicular to appendix axis, 0.2-1.5 cm, purple, in shallow pockets, base not swollen, apex obtuse, producing a clear fluid during female anthesis.

● Dense grasslands; below 100-100 m. Taiwan.


 

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