Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Herbs with underground tubers or erect, thick stems.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades ovate–cordate to sagittate–cordate, peltate. Base cordate. Margins entire. Petioles glabrous, sometimes strikingly glaucous, rarely pubescent, sheath rather long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in 1 to several inflorescences together, subtended by a persistent bract; spathe constricted in lower portion to form a tube; spadix much shorter than spathe, fertile staminate portion about as long as pistillate portion, with a shorter sterile staminate portion in between and an even shorter sterile appendage. Flowers unisexual, naked. Calyx absent. Corolla (petals) absent. Staminate flowers with 3–6 connate stamen forming a truncate synandrium. Ovary superior (pistillate flowers), 3–4-carpellate, 1-celled; ovules numerous, on parietal placentas; stigma capitate.

Fruit: Fruit an oblong berry. Seeds numerous.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: