Spathicarpa Hook.

HABIT : small, seasonally dormant, sometimes evergreen herbs, tuber subterranean, rhizomatous, shortly oblong, horizontal. LEAVES : several. PETIOLE : slender, sheath often rather long. BLADE : narrowly elliptic, oblong, ovate-emarginate, ovate-cordate, cordate, cordate-sagittate, auriculate-hastate or strongly hastate to subtrisect; basal ribs short when present, primary lateral veins pinnate or mostly arising at petiole insertion, arcuate and running into margin or forming an irregular, submarginal collective vein, higher order venation reticulate. INFLORESCENCE : solitary, appearing with leaves. PEDUNCLE : relatively long, slender. SPATHE : not constricted, oblong-lanceolate to narrowly elliptic or oblanceolate, acuminate, fully expanded to subrevolute at anthesis, later closing, persistent, green. SPADIX : entirely adnate to spathe, recurved at anthesis, fertile to apex, ± laxly flowered, female flowers forming 2 outer longitudinal rows, enclosing 2 rows of male flowers, all in parallel. FLOWERS : unisexual, perigone absent. MALE FLOWER : 3-4-androus, stamens connate, synandrium stipitate, apex formed by nectariferous, usually shallowly lobed stigmatoid-connective, anthers short, partly covered and overtopped by stigmatoid-connective, thecae 6-8, broadly ellipsoid, lateral, dehiscing by subapical pore. POLLEN : extruded in strands, inaperturate, ellipsoid-oblong to -elongate, medium-sized (mean 48 µm., range 45-51 µm.), exine almost perfectly psilate. FEMALE FLOWER : gynoecium partially surrounded on one side by 3 small, very shortly stipitate, discoid-umbonate, green staminodes, ovary oblong-ovoid, 1-locular, ovule 1, orthotropous, funicle very short to ± absent, placenta basal, style attenuate, cylindric-conoid, stigma discoid-subcapitate. BERRY : ovoid to ellipsoid, acute-attenuate, green. SEED : ovoid-obnapiform, strophiolate, testa smooth to ± rough, brownish to green, embryo axile, elongate, endosperm copious.