Sauromatum diversifolium (Araceae)
Underground part a subglobose tuber, 1–1.5cm high, 0.5–1.2cm in diam., producing annual offsets. Petiole 10–30cm; leaf blade simple and ovate-lanceolate, 2–22 × 1–25cm, cuneate to hastate, 3–5-lobed or pedately 5–9-sect, lobes elliptic to linear. Inflorescence appearing just before or alongside leaves; peduncle 3–14cm. Spathe base oblong-ovoid, 2–4 × 1–2cm; limb outside green, sometimes flushed with purple or purple all over, inside dark purple or greenish with dark purple veins and flushes, oblong-lanceolate, 4–13 × 2–5cm, apex acuminate to shortly caudate. Spadix shorter than spathe, 4–12cm; female zone cylindric, 0.5–1.5 cm × 4–7 mm; ovary: basal half white, apical half purple, ellipsoid; stigma sessile, white; sterile zone 1–3 cm, base swollen and with long staminodes, rest fusiform, with verrucate staminodal structures; proximal staminodes clavate, with only apical part distinctly and abruptly swollen, basal part filiform, whitish with purple flushes, clavate part yellow with a purple tip or purple; staminodal structures consisting of narrowly elliptic, shallow ridges with verrucate-corrugate surface, white, pale purple, or violet; male zone cylindric, 0.6–1.3cm × 1.5–7mm; appendix blackish purple, broadly to narrowly cylindric, 1–7cm × 2–8mm, obtuse or subacute.
This material was reprinted with permission from the Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis, and Science Press, Beijing.
This material was reprinted with permission from the Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis, and Science Press, Beijing.
Open grasslands, meadows, alpine damp open ground.