Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Large herbs up to 0.75 m tall.

Stems: Stems usually subterranean, short, erect.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades cordate–ovate, sagittate–ovate, or hastate, 15–45 cm long, 10–25 cm wide. Apex cuspidate, unspotted. Surfaces glabrous. Margins entire, often wavy. Petioles smooth, 28–68 cm long, usually longer than blades. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences solitary, held at about the level of the leaves, peduncles 22–77 cm long; spathe white to cream, lacking any discoloration at base within, broadly ovate (when flattened), 10–25 cm long, 2 or more times longer than spadix, with an open and broad flaring limb recurving from the tube, apex cuspidate, base weakly convolute; spadix cream, sessile, subcylindrical, slightly tapered, 5–8 cm long. Flowers unisexual, naked. Calyx (sepals) absent. Corolla (petals) absent. Staminodia and anthers bright yellow. Ovary superior; ovary pale greenish white, narrowed into a distinct style 1–2 mm long.

Fruit: Berries; yellowish; 5-10 mm across; oval (i.e. ellipsoid) in shape (about 40-50 berries are produced on each inflorescence). Seeds light brown.

Ploidy: 2n = 24; 28; 32

Habitat:

Elevation Range: