Piptospatha ridleyi N.E.Br. ex Hook.f.

Rheophytic herb (8-)10-30(-40) cm tall with strong extensive roots 1-2 mm diam. Stem condensed, 1-3 cm long, 5-8 mm diam. Leaves few to several together; petiole (3-)5-15(-18) cm long, 0.9-2.5 mm diam., often reddish, adaxially canaliculate, sheathing only at the extreme base, the wings extended into a narrow ligular portion 2-7 cm long at first reddish then drying brown; blade (narrowly) elliptic (4-)6-18(-23) cm long × (1-)2.5-6(-8) cm wide, coriaceous, the base cuneate, the apex acute and apiculate for 1-3 mm, adaxially dark green, usually but not always variegated in an irregularly spattered pattern of paler green, abaxially paler; midrib abaxially very prominent, adaxially slightly impressed, with (3-)4-7(-10) primary lateral veins on each side, diverging at c. 30-60°, running to a distinct submarginal vein; primary lateral veins not or hardly prominent abaxially, rather fine; secondary venation adaxially obscure; tertiary venation forming a faint tessellate reticulum (dry). Inflorescence solitary; peduncle much exceeding the petioles at anthesis, 10-25 cm long, pale reddish brown (?always); spathe broadly ovoid, c. 2.5-3 cm long, pink in the caducous upper part with darker veins and small dots, the lower part green, apically rather abruptly beaked for c. 3 mm, at anthesis gaping in the distal part. Spadix subcylindric-clavate, about half the length of the spathe, shortly stipitate with the stipe fully adnate to the spathe; female zone c. 5 mm long × 4 mm diam.; pistils more or less ovoid, c. 0.5 mm diam.; stigma very slightly raised on an indistinct style, rather thickly discoid, about the diameter of the ovary; interpistillar staminodes restricted to an irregular whorl at the base of the female zone, whitish, more or less obpyramidal and shortly stipitate, about half the height of the pistils; sterile interstice absent; male zone ellipsoid, slightly but distinctly broader than the female zone, c. 7 mm long × 6 mm diam., fertile to apex; stamens truncate, more or less rectangular-dumbbell-shaped, rather irregularly aligned in pairs, the connective somewhat to distinctly mounded between the pores and usually finely and densely pubescent (occasionally glabrous). Fruiting spathe broadly obconic, c. 1.5 cm diam.; berries clustered, subcylindric to obovoid, 2-3 mm long, 1.1-1.5 mm diam.; seed subcylindric to elongate ellipsoid, 1.5-1.8 mm long, 0.5-0.6 mm diam., brown; testa longitudinally ribbed, with a long curved transparent micropylar appendage c. 1.5 mm long, the appendages interlinked in fruit.