Taccarum warmingii Engl.

Geophytic herbs, robust, up to 1.5 m tall. STEM tuberous, 5-9 x 6-10cm, producing numerous globose offsets. LEAF solitary; petioles robust, 67-77 X 2.5-7 cm, green, waxy, smooth; blade bipinnatifid, ovate in outline, 54--86 x 51-77 cm, medium green, waxy adaxially, matte green abaxially, anterior division 24-48 x 37-77 cm, primary lateral lobes 2-3 per side, 14-34 x 7-17 cm, entire to pinnatifid, lobules 3.5-10 x 4-6 cm, posterior division 16-42 x 40-77 cm, acroscopic lobes 2-3, basioscopic 2-3, basal nerve rarely denuded or denuded portion no more than 6 mm long. INFLORESCENCE: solitary, peduncle 5-8 x 1-1.5 cm; spathe broadly elliptic, greenish to purplish outside, purple inside, only convolute at base at anthesis, 23-30 x 5-13 cm, apex acuminate; spadix shorter than spathe, 17-20 cm long, female portion 5.5-10 x 2.5-3 cm, adnate to the spadix for 20-40% of its length; male portion 13 x 2.5 cm, pinkish. Flowers: male flowers in synandria 5-6-andric, 10-45 X 3-4 mm, filaments completely connate, 5-7 X 1-3 mm, yellow thecae, oblong, 1.5 X 1 mm, pollen grains ellipsoid to ovoid, exine psilate, connective as long or even longer than the rest of the synandrium, 4-6 X 3-5 mm, cylindrical to obovoid, purple; female flowers surrounded by 5-7 staminodes capitate, 2-2.5 x 0.3 mm, purplish with the apex salmon colored, pistil 9-10 x 3-4 mm, stigma 4-6 lobed, 3-5 mm diam., style as long as the ovary, 6-7 x 1 mm, globose ovary, 1-3 x 2.5-3 mm, 4-6 locules uniovulated, anatropous ovules with a short funicle. INFRUCTESCENCE unknown, but cited as yellow by N. E. Brown (1881).