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Araceae
Rhaphidophora araea P.C.Boyce
SUMMARY
Slender, heterophyllous (?), creeping rheophyte (?) to 45 cm; seedling and pre-adult plants unknown; LEAVES: adult shoot sympodial, clinging main axis creeping or briefly ascendant; stems minutely longitudinally ridged, without petiolar sheath fibre, internodes 0.5-1 x 0.3-0.5 cm, separated by prominent very slightly oblique leaf scars; dormant axillary and terminal buds comparatively very large, matt black; clasping roots very densely arising from the nodes and internodes of clinging stems, finely pubescent; feeding roots adherent, densely pubescent; leaves spiro-distichous, erect or spreading and scattered and tending to become distally clustered on adult shoots; cataphylls and prophylls unknown, (soon drying and falling ?); petiole very narrowly canaliculate to almost carinate, 6-20 x 0.1-2.25 cm, smooth, apical and basal genicula not prominent; petiolar sheath barely visible, but extending to the just below the apical geniculum, soon falling; lamina entire, very narrowly lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate-elliptic or narrowly oblanceolate, slightly to prominently oblique, 9-30 x 1.5-4 cm, coriaceous, semiglossy above, matt beneath, margins minutely revolute, base long-decurrent, apex long-acuminate with a moderately prominent tubule; midrib raised abaxially, sunken adaxially; primary venation pinnate, slightly raised abaxially and adaxially; interprimaries subparallel to primaries, slightly raised abaxially and adaxially; secondary venation reticulate, very slightly raised; INFLORESCENCE solitary, subtended by a fully developed foliage and a prominent, narrow prophyll; peduncle subequalling or exceeding petioles, terete, 9-14 x 0.18-0.2 cm; spathe broadly canoe-shaped, abruptly stout-beaked, 4-5 x 0.6-1.2 cm, stiffly fleshy, yellow, falling (at anthesis ?); spadix cylindrical, stipitate, 2.4-3.2 x c. 0.5 cm, green; stipe c. 2 x 0.75 mm; stylar region rather well developed, mostly rhombohexagonal, c. 1-1.5 x 1-1.5 mm, very slightly conical to truncate; stigma punctiform, c. 0.3 mm diam., raised; anthers exserted at anthesis; INFRUCTESCENCE unknown.