白蘑芋 bai mo yu

Tuber brown, subglobose, 5-6 cm high, 7-10 cm in diam., seasonally producing long rhizomatous offsets, these to 23 × 1.5 cm. Leaf solitary; petiole pale green with grayish green, irregular, elongate or rounded spots, and whitish dots, 40-70 × 1.5-2 cm, glabrous; leaf blade ca. 80 cm in diam., rachises winged; leaflets elliptic-lanceolate, 2-12 × 1-3 cm, acuminate. Inflorescence solitary, long pedunculate; peduncle 16-30 × 1-2 cm. Spathe cymbiform, narrowly ovate, 12-22 × 6-10 cm, acute; proximal margin of limb recurved, outside base green to pale green, inside creamy white; outside limb pale green, spotted with dark green and near margin with numerous indistinct white punctiform dots, inside creamy white with a faint pale green flush, base within densely verruculose. Spadix producing a heavy gaseous smell during female anthesis, sessile, bright pale green, turning yellowish during male anthesis, slightly curved, shorter than spathe, ca. 13.5 cm; female zone cylindric, ca. 1 × 1.2-1.3 cm, flowers congested; ovary bright green, depressed, angulate in cross section, ca. 1.5 mm high, 2.5-3 mm in diam., 2-loculed, but 1 locule reduced and sterile; style strongly oriented parallel to spadix axis, bright green, distally pale to yellowish green, 2-2.5 × ca. 1 mm; stigma lateral, slightly arching, whitish disciform, ca. 1.5 mm in diam., ca. 0.8 mm thick, entire, strongly scabrous; sterile zone between male and female zone swollen, slightly conic, 1-2.5 × 1-1.8 cm; staminodes congested; staminodes consisting of sterile entire flowers, off-white, slightly hemispheric, irregular, largest ca. 12 × 7 mm, with shallow irregular depressions, or with a few irregular grooves; male zone narrowly conic, apex slightly expanded, ca. 4 × 0.8 cm, ca. 1.5 cm in diam. at base, flowers congested; male flowers consisting of 3 or 4(or 5) stamens; stamens ca. 2 mm; filaments entirely fused, off-white, ca. 1.3 mm; anthers ca. 0.7 × 2 mm, truncate; thecae off-white, opening with apical rounded pores; connective dirty pale yellowish, flat, raised after anthesis; appendix narrowly conic, ca. 6 × 1.6 cm, finely rugulose, apex obtuse. Berries orange-red when mature, ovoid.

● Open forests, arid thickets; 800-1000 m. S Sichuan, NE Yunnan.

This species is used as a crop plant and is cultivated in Yunnan.