Araceae
Arisaema scortechinii Hook.f.
SUMMARY
Plant a seasonal and evergreen, to 60 cm tall and 40 cm wide. Subterranean stem a rhizome, ca. 5cm long - and 1.5 cm wide, cream. ROOTS thick, numerous.and yellow-white, rooting all over. SHOOT; pseudostem absent; cataphylls wrapping petioles and peduncles separately, linear-Ianceolate, to 10 cm long around petioles and 20 cm around pedunde; pale green, striped and marbled rose and brown. LEAVES usually 20r 3 present simultaneously; petiole 20-40 cm long, 3-8 mm wide at the base, smooth, dark olive-green with faint, dark stripes and brown and rose mottling;. blade pedate, with a rachis 5-15 mm long, green or pink; leaflets to 7 in number, linear-elliptic, shiny green often with paler midvein, hardly impressed veins above; margins undulate and entire; apex acuminate ending in a short arista, 0.5 cm long; base cuneate or convex; petiolulate; central leaflet 12-25 cm long, l.5-2.5 CI11 wide, with a petiolule 10-20 mm long, green or reddish, plain or mottled; lateral leaflets shorter than the central segment, usually slightly decreasing in size outwards, with a petiolule, 3-10 mm long. INFLORESCECE more or less at the level of the foliage, emergence independent of the leaf development; peduncle longer than the petioles, 25-50 cm long, 5-10 mm wide at the base, smooth and similar in colour to the petioles, turning black- purple near the inflorescence; 3 or, rarely, 4 to 5 bulbil-like excrescences are borne, 2 below the spathe, and 1, or 2 to 3 along the lower half of the peduncle, in bisexual as well as in male inflorescences; spathe-tube cylindrical, slender, 2.5-4 cm long and 8-10 mm wide, outside and inside white-green with a white annulus at the base, smooth; mouth-margins w ith large, green auricles, 15-20 mm w ide and 25 mill long; spathe-limb horizontal, ovate, shorter than or nearly the length of the tube, ca. 3 cm long and 2 cm wide, with a conspicuous, large, white spot in the middle lower face, surrounded by 5 yellow, wide stripes; spathe-tip acuminate; spadix-appendix protruding from the tube but shorter than the spathe, erect at anthesis, 2-2.5 cm long, slender; ending in an apex yellow, even, attenuate and less than 1 mm in diameter; central part yellow and naked; base carmine and ca. 1.5 mm across with 1 or 2 carmine neuters, ca. 5 mm long; lower part sessile; spadix male or bisexual, subcylindrical ca. 3 cm long, 0.5-1 cm across, carmine axis; male part: stamens loosely arranged, borne on a carmine stalk, ca. 0.5 mm long, 3-androus, anthers carmine; thecae dehiscent by a rounded, carmine pore; pollen cream; female part: pistils densely packed; ovaries ovoid and pale green, 2 mm long and 1.5 mm across, stigma sessile and penicillate. INFRUCTESCENCE cylindrical, 3-4 cm long and 2 cm across, borne on an erect peduncle when ripe. BERRIES densely packed, fusiform, 10 mm long and 6 mm across, bright red; flat on top with stigmatic remains; each containing 1 or 2 seeds; seeds subglobose, ca. 5 mm in diameter; testa light brown. Germination: a simple eophyll is produced just after germination.