Typhonium trilobatum
Evergreen herb to 0.85 m tall. Subterranean stem a rhizome, 3–5 ×1.5–2 cm, light brown outside. Cataphylls sheathing separately petiole and peduncle, green with faint pink mottling; petiole 45–85 ×1–2 cm, olive-green with pink mottling and dark carmine stripes; leaf blade pedate; leaflets 5, elliptic, to 25 × 9 cm, margins entire, apex acuminate, ending in an arista to 3 cm long; central leaflet base cuneate, with a petiolule to 4 cm long; lateral leaflets asymmetrical, decreasing a little in size outwards, base convex, shortly petiolulate, glossy green with barely impressed veins above, underside paler. Inflorescence more or less held at foliage level; peduncle to 0.75 m long, thin, green with dark green stripes; spathe tube slightly funnel-shaped, 6–7 × ca 1 cm at the base, pale green outside and white inside, white at the base; spathe mouth margins with broad, yellow-green auricles, ca 2 cm wide; spathe limb ovate, 8–9 × 3–4 cm in the middle, glossy yellow-green, acuminate, ending in a filiform tip to 2 cm long; spadix appendix slightly exserted from the tube, erect, subcylindrical, white-green, with a rounded, even or slightly rugose apex, ca 4 cm long × 3.5 mm wide, sessile, often with a few, short carmine or green bristles above the fertile part; fertile zone staminate or bisexual, ca 4 cm long; staminate flowers 3–4 androus, subsessile, anthers cream, carmine at the top; thecae dehiscing by an oblong pore; pistillate flowers densely arranged; ovaries ovoid, pale green; stigma subsessile, capitate. Infructescence unknown.
Widespread from India (type and type of T. orixense) to S. China and south through Thailand (type of T. siamense), Peninsular Malaysia (type of T. triste) as far as Singapore. For a detailed discussion of typifications, see Nicolson & Sivadasan, Blumea 27: 483–497. 1981.
Ecology. —Ruderal; low altitudes.