You are here
Araceae
Rhaphidophora intrusa P.C.Boyce
SUMMARY
Slender, leptocaul, homeophyllous liane to 5 m; seedling and pre-adult plants not observed; LEAVES: adult shoot architecture comprised of elongated, clinging, physiognomically unbranched, leafy, non-flowering stems and somewhat lengthened mostly unbranched, free, sympodial, spreading to pendent, rarely ascending, leafy, flowering stems; stems smooth, flexuous, climbing stems + terete, free stems somewhat longitudinally flattened, without prophyll, cataphyll and petiolar sheath fibre, internodes 1-6 x 0.6 cm on clinging shoots, those on free shoots much more slender, separated by weak straight to slightly oblique leaf scars, older stems woody; flagellate foraging stems not observed; clasping roots arising sparsely from nodes of clinging stems, slightly pubescent; feeding roots not observed; leaves distichous, somewhat scattered; cataphylls and prophylls not observed; petiole shallowly to rather deeply grooved adaxially, 2.5-5 x 0.1-0.2 cm, smooth, with very slight apical and basal geniculum; petiolar sheath prominent, chartaceous, extending beyond the apical geniculum by two ligules adaxially and by ligules fused along the abaxial midrib for up to half the leaf lamina length, sheath eventually falling leaving a continuous scar from the petiole base, around the top of the apical geniculum and back to the base and remnants along the abaxial midrib; lamina entire, oblong-elliptic, 6-16.5 x 3.5-6 cm, submembranous, base subovate, apex weakly acuminate, with a minute tubule; midrib raised abaxially, slightly sunken adaxially in fresh material, slightly sunken abaxially and adaxially in dry material; primary venation pinnate, slightly raised on both surfaces in dried material; interprimaries sub-parallel to, but much less distinctive than, primaries; secondary venation very feebly reticulate, almost invisible; INFLORESCENCE solitary, subtended by a fully developed foliage leaf; peduncle slender-terete, 3.5-4 x 0.15 cm; spathe cigar-shaped, cuneate basally at insertion on petiole, apex truncate and extending into a very long slender beak up to 1/3 length of entire spathe, 7-8 x 1.3-1.5 cm, thick fleshy, marcescent(?), later pushed off by developing infructescence(?) leaving a large scar; spadix cigar-shaped, stipitate, inserted level on stipe, 4.5-5.5 x 0.9-1.2 cm, obtuse; stipe slender terete, c. 1 x 0.2 cm; stylar region dorso-ventrally compressed-rhombohexagonal, 0.9-1.5 x 0.85-1.2 mm, truncate; stigma punctiform, c. 0.45 mm diam., prominent in dried material; anthers not exserted at male anthesis; INFRUCTESCENCE stoutly cigar-shaped, c. 5 x 1.5 cm.