Arisaema calcareum (Araceae)
Plants deciduous, to 120cm tall and 60cm wide. Tuber subglobose or cylindric, 2.5–6cm in diam. Cataphylls 3, flesh-colored, longitudinally striped and mottled, lanceolate, 2–40cm, apex obtuse for shortest. Leaves 2, subopposite; petiole light green, plain or stained with purple, to 60cm, proximal part to 45cm sheathing into pseudostem; leaf blade 3-foliolate; leaflets abaxially paler, sometimes flushed carmine, adaxially green and with impressed, thin, and light green veins and a broad, white-green central midvein, margins entire, base convex and petiolulate, apex acuminate; central leaflet with petiolule to 4cm, blade subrhombic, shorter than lateral ones, 20–50 × 10–25cm, base cuneate; lateral leaflets with petiolule to 2cm, blade ovate, 20–55 × 10–25cm. Inflorescence unisexual, emerging when leaves unfold and held nearly at foliage level; peduncle pale green, shorter than petioles, 10–20 × ca. 1cm. Spathe tube green with white stripes, basally white, cylindric, ca. 7 × 1.5cm, throat not expanded; limb curved forward, green with conspicuous white stripes and a white spot at throat level, oblong-lanceolate, ca. 6 × 2.5 cm, apex long acuminate. Spadix: ovaries congested, ovoid, ca. 2.5 × 2mm; ovules ca. 2; stigma penicillate, borne on a short style; male flowers unknown; appendix slightly exserted from tube, erect, pale green, cylindric, 6–8 cm × ca. 5 mm, slightly narrowed to both ends, base with scattered hornlike projections (these curved, 3–5mm, often brown and bifid at apex), apex rounded. Fruiting spike upright.
This material was reprinted with permission from the Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis, and Science Press, Beijing.
This material was reprinted with permission from the Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis, and Science Press, Beijing.
Among shrubs.