Typhonium flagelliforme
Deciduous herb to 0.6 m tall. Subterranean stem a subglobose tuber, 3–5 cm across × 2–3.5 cm high, cream. Pseudostem 25–30 × ca 2 cm at base, pale green or magenta. Cataphylls to 30 cm long, similar in colour to the pseudostem; petiole 20–25 × 1 cm at the base, similar in colour to the pseudostem, with faint pink stripes in the upper part; leaf blade trifoliolate; leaflets 20–25 × ca 15 cm, margins entire, apex acuminate, ending in a short arista, 0.5 cm long, subsessile or shortly petiolulate, dark green, glossy above, underside paler with slightly raised veins; central leaflet broadly elliptic-ovate, base convex or cuneate; lateral leaflets asymmetrical, ovate, base convex. Inflorescence held slightly above the foliage; peduncle 20–30 cm long × ca 6 mm wide, similar in colour to the petiole; spathe tube cylindrical, 6–7 × 1.5–2 cm; spathe limb ovate-lanceolate, 7–10 × 3.5–4 cm, acuminate; spadix appendix long exserted from the spathe at anthesis, cylindrical, 8–15 cm long × 4–6 mm across at base, sessile, ending outside the tube in a carmine, long, filiform and pendulous tail covered with filiform, dark carmine, bristly projections, these ca 25 mm long; fertile zone staminate or bisexual, 2–3 cm long; staminate flowers loosely arranged, 2–4-androus, anthers carmine, on short stalks; thecae dehiscent by elongate pores; pistillate flowers loosely arranged; ovaries ovoid, green; stigma penicillate, on a short style. Infructescence on an erect peduncle, subcylindrical, ca 2.2 × 1.8 cm; fruits densely packed, ovoid, red, 3–4 mm wide. Seeds globose, ca 1–2 mm diam.
N.E. India through Myanmar to S.W. China and south through Malesia (type of Arum cuspidatum), Philippines (type), to N. Australia. For typification data see Nicolson & Sivadasan, Blumea 27: 483–497. 1981.
Ruderal habitats, in shallow water by streams and moist meadows, often in ditches and along field margins, less often in wet open forest, 0–350 m asl.