Cyrtosperma cuspidispathum Alderw.

Moderately robust to gigantic solitary or rarely suckering herbs to c. 4 m tall; rhizome short. Leaves 2-several; petiole brown, green, or mottled in various combinations of these and white; armature sparse to dense; spines, at least in the lower parts of the petioles and peduncles, small, squat, abruptly upturned and easily dislodged; petioles standing subparallel, not distinctly diverging from the base; lamina hastate or sagittate, to 1.3 m long, in smaller specimens often with the lobes much narrower than long, held with the posterior lobes down, anterior lobe up, somewhat flaccid, unarmed; peduncle somewhat shorter than the petioles. Spathe 17-c. 100 cm long, clasping in the lower quarter, ovate-lanceolate, in smaller specimens erect, with increasing size the apical acuminate portion somewhat reflexed to greatly elongated, spirally twisted and dangling, purple brown, usually with yellow veins outside, and with pale pink to cream streaks towards the midline within; spadix to 18 cm long in flower, with a 2-6 cm long, free, sometimes armed stipe. Flowers hexamerous; anthers not exceeding the tepals at male anthesis; stigmas more or less sessile, white turning brown; ovaries predominantly uniovulate, rarely (in any spadix) biovulate. Fruit when ripe expelled from the spadix and held there by the stripped-away adaxial epidermis of the tepals. Seed slightly and irregularly ridged.