Lasimorpha senegalensis Schott

Robust to massive colony-forming herb to 3.5 m high; root-stock a short, dense, subterranean, stoloniferous rhizome to 12 cm diameter. LEAVES to 7 per crown; petiole to 2.8 m long, 4-6-angular in cross section, armed in vertical rows along the edges with stout short spines; sheath short, less than 1/4 of the length of the petiole, persistent; geniculus absent or hardly differentiated; blade hastate to sagittate to 1.1 m long and 55 cm wide, leathery, unarmed, held ± erect with the anterior lobe up. INFLORESCENCE solitary; peduncle similar to and about equalling the petioles, without a geniculus. Spathe ovate, to c. 40 cm long, with the margins convolute in lower 1/3, open in mid-1/3, incurved to convolute in the upper attenuate 1/3, brownish green without, dirty pale yellow boldly streaked and blotched deep purple within, with a somewhat fragrant odour of decomposing fruit, after anthesis becoming green, persistent into ripe fruit, then marcescent, retaining shape, eventually decomposing with the rest of the inflorescence and peduncle; spadix at anthesis blackish purple, to 18 cm long, 1.5-2 cm diameter, sessile. Flowers tetramerous; anthers partially exserted from the tepals at male anthesis, then retracting filaments united into a tube; pollination drops ?absent; stigmas white; ovules 4-6 on a rather prominent basal and parietal placenta. FRUIT irregularly globose, ± flat-topped; pericarp with white mesocarp and a tough red inner and outer epidermis. Seeds 1-4, to 5 x 5 mm, strongly campylotropous, strophiolate; testa brown, warty, and spiny. Often very common.