台湾蘑芋 tai wan mo yu

Amorphophallus niimurae Yamamoto.

Tuber dark brown, depressed globose, 2-6 cm high, 3-11 cm in diam., weighing up to 500 g, seasonally producing several globose offset tubers, these 0.5-1 cm in diam. Leaf solitary; petiole dull or moderately glossy, mid- or dark green with several ± oval or irregular, whitish spots, with or without numerous small, white dots in between, 30-60 cm, near base 1-2 cm in diam., glabrous; leaf blade moderately or highly dissected, 30-100 cm in diam.; rachises narrowly winged; leaflets abaxially pale green, adaxially mid- or dark green, dull or glossy, margin at first reddish pink, later usually turning green or whitish, elliptic-ovate, elliptic, or lanceolate, 4-26 × 1.5-5.5 cm, apex acuminate or long acuminate; major veins strongly impressed. Inflorescence solitary, shortly pedunculate; peduncle colored as petiole, 4-20 × 0.8-1.5 cm, lengthening in fruit. Spathe strongly convolute at base, outside glossy pale green, with or without a purplish flush, with or without a few small, paler spots; inside dark maroon, near constriction dirty whitish or greenish purple, campanulate, constricted between base and limb, broadly triangular-ovate, 9-25 × 8-23 cm, thickly walled, apex acute or obtuse; limb horizontal, irregularly wavy, outside pale green, with a variable, pinkish purplish hue, maroon near margin, inside dark maroon, dull or glossy, near margin greenish or pale purplish, base within densely covered with large, irregular verrucae; venation strongly impressed. Spadix producing a smell of decaying meat or cow dung at female anthesis, sessile, longer than spathe, 20-52 cm, female and male zones contiguous or separated by a short (ca. 0.5 cm) (partly) sterile zone; female zone cylindric or slightly conic, 1.5-4 cm, 2-3 cm in diam. (including styles), flowers congested or all or partly ± remote; ovary: base or larger part greenish, rest dark purple, depressed, orbicular or suborbicular in cross section, 1.5-3 mm high, 2-3(-4.5) mm in diam., 2-loculed, with 1 basal ovule per locule; funicle long, strongly coiled; style brownish purple or blackish, 2-3 mm, slender, 0.8-1.2(-1.5) mm in diam.; stigma grayish purple, large, orbicular or oval in cross section, 0.8-1.5 mm high, ca. 2 mm in diam., 2- or 3(or 4)-lobed, densely scabrous-papillate; lobes conic, obtuse or subacute; sterile zone with variously transformed male flowers (staminodes), sometimes intermixed with a few sterile remnants of bisexual flowers, often accompanied by all possible transitional stages from adjacent zones; appendix pale or dark brown, narrowly fusiform, 15-42 cm, 1.4-3 cm in diam. near base, 1.8-4 cm in diam. ca. 1/3 from base, oval in cross section, thinly walled and hollow after anthesis, apex ± obtuse or acute, with regular or irregular, shallow, strongly wrinkled and/or with elongate depressions, these in basal half of appendix with or without a short, pale or dark purplish or whitish hair (0.5-2.5 mm); sterile flowers (when present) between male and female zone either pale green or purple, to 5 mm, hairlike, or reduced bisexual flowers, these consisting of a reduced pistil surrounded by several stamens; male zone ± obconic, 1.5-4.5 cm, 0.9-1.9 cm in diam. at base, 1.5-3.5 cm in diam. at apex, flowers congested or proximal ones distant, free or in distal part fused into low-angled spirals; male flowers consisting of (2 or)3-6 stamens; stamens ivory-white, oval in cross section, ca. 2 × 1.8 mm; filaments ca. 1 mm, basally connate; anthers ca. 1 mm, truncate or rostrate (elongation of connective); connective minutely verrucate, after anthesis more strongly rostrate by differential shrinking of lateral sides of anthers; pores apical, elongate prior to anthesis, oval at anthesis, opening by deepening of lower margin, after anthesis ± laterally displaced. Berries blue or violet, elliptic.

● Broad-leaved forests, mixed forests, bamboo plantations, orchards, in heavily to lightly shaded places, on thin soils on limestone bedrock or in karst areas; sea level to 700 m. Taiwan.