Biarum tenuifolium (L.) Schott

Tuber dorso-ventrally compressed discoid, offsetting feely, 2-6 cm x 1.5-2.5 cm, mid-brown. LEAVES 4-20, hysteranthous, distincly to rather obscurely long petiolate, bases encased by 3-many, 2-8 x 0.5-2 cm oblong-lanceolate sub fleshy, later papery, cataphylls, these pale green drying off-white to pale straw yellow; petioles 1-8 cm x 2.5mm, adaxial surface channeled distally, expanded proximally into a membranous wing, mid-green; leaf lamina oblong-lanceolate, linear-lanceolate, spathulate or linear oblong, 2.5-49 cm x 2-21 mm, apex scute to obtuse or rounded, base long decurrent to cuneate, margins smooth, gently undulate or strongly undulate-crispulate, ca. 5-9 primary lateral veins per side, mid- to dark green. INFLORESCENCE appearing in late usmmer to mid-autumn, occasionally in spring, usually strongly foetid of cattle dung, Italian populations of ssp. abbreviatum reported to smell goat-like (Paglia, 1909); peduncle 6-10 cm x 3-5mm, white; clothed with few to several oblong-lanceolate sub-felshy, later papery, cataphylls, 4-12 x 1.5-2cm, these pale green drying off-white to pale straw-yellow. Spathe 3-30 cm long; spathe limb 2-25 x 0.5-6 cm, apex acute to acuminate exterior purple, sometimes paler to green apically, interior deep brown-purple, green towards the apex in ssp. abbreviatum; lower spatge cylindric to oblong cylindric, usually constricted above tthe pistillate flowers, sometimes further constricted ca. 3/4 along its length, margins fused for their whole length, 2.6 x 1-1.25 cm, exterior white, stained purple towards the apex, interior white. Spadix shorter than to greatly exceeding the spathe limb, 4-40 cm long;spadix appendix cylindrical to stoutly fusiforme, 3-41cm x 1.5-9 mm, deep brown-purple, often somewhat paler than the spather limb, rarely oliv green or dirty yellow; upper staminodes in a zone 3-17mm long, in 2-10 regualr to rather irregualr whorls, hooked, peg-like or filamentous, cream to ivory; staminate flowers in a zone 3-20 x 1-6 mm diam., cream to ivory; interstice usually ± absent, occasionally up to 15 mm long above the pistillate flowers or below the staminate flowers, cream; lower staminodes in a zone 2-23 x 1-4 mm, in 2-13 regular whorls, hooked, peg like or almost filamentous, cream to ivory; pistillate flowers in a hemispherical to slightly cylindric hemispherical zone 3-7 x 2-5 mm; ovary oblong, 0.5-2 x 0.25-2mm, cream; stigma sessile, capitate, 0.25-0.33 mm in diam., cream. INFRUCTESCENCE globose, 1.5-4 cm in diam., consisting of 15-45 berries;berry oblong to oblong-globose, 3.5-9 x 2.5-5.5 mm, white when ripe, seed ovoid, 2.5-4.5 x 3-6 mm, pale brown, barely reticulate.