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Araceae
Amorphophallus gracilior Hutch.
SUMMARY
Tuber 2.5-10 x 1-4 cm, flattened to globose, rooting shallowly. LEAF ca. 40-70 cm high. Petiole ca. 12-60 cm long. Blade ca. 28-50 cm in diameter; rachis not winged or only narrowly winged in the distal regions of the leaf; terminal leaflets elongate-broadly elliptic ('länglich-oval') to egg-shaped, 9-15 x 3-4 cm, tapering into a 1 cm long point. Cataphylls 5; the two inner ones 2-7 cm long, ('basal drei ca. 1 cm lang'). INFLORESCENCE 20-40 cm high, appearing before the leaf. Peduncle 15-32 cm long, slender, extremely thin, 1.5-3 cm in diameter, smooth. Spathe slender, 3-7 x 1.5-2.5 cm, arranged without a constriction into a minute tube and an acute triangular open limb. Tube 2-3 x 1.5-2 cm, short cylindrical, outside grey to green to cream with green to purple veins; inside basally smooth to slightly rough due to dot-like warts, with slightly raised veins, brownish to purple; open limb 3-5 cm long, tilted erect to nodding, narrow, acute, margin smooth, grey to green to cream and speckled with greenish. Spadix sessile, 6-8 cm long, somewhat longer than the spathe. Pistillate zone cylindrical, 0.3-0.7 x 0.4 cm, one to maximum two rows of flowers. Staminate zone cylindrical, 0.5-1.5 x 0.4 cm, stamens in loosely dispersed groups. Appendix 4-6 cm long, club-shaped, basally narrowly cylindrical and not constricted, apically thickened like a club, can apically be rolled up like a fern leaf, grey to grey brown, surface rough to rugulose. Staminodes as sterile anthers in the basal region of the appendix; sterile zone between pistillate and staminate zone absent; ratio of pistillate to staminate zone 0.46-0.6 : 1. Pistillate flowers 1-2 cm long, ovary 0.8-1.3 x 1-2 mm, globose-ovoid ('rundlich-oval') to slightly pressed globose, unilocular, one basal ovule-attachment; stigma sessile to subsessile, knoblike to obovoid, 0.3-0.8 mm in diameter. Staminate flowers 1-1.5 mm long, 3(-4) stamens forming one flower; anthers free, ovoid, ca. 1 mm long; filaments 0.3-0.5 mm long, (2-)3(-4) fused together basally into a platform like "Columna", often fused all the way to the anthers and forming a pillar-like Columna; pores apical, slit-like, one per theca. Pollen inaperturate, exine spinose (echinate). INFRUCTESCENCE globose, ca. 3 cm in diameter. Berries 1 x 1 cm, globose, single seeded, red. Smell not known.