Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Coarse perennial herbs 2–4 m tall with leafy shoots.

Stems: Rhizomes creeping. pseudostems robust.

Roots: Fibrous root system.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate, distichous. Blades oblong–lanceolate, 40–60 cm long, 12–14 cm wide. Apex short-acuminate. Base attenuate. Surfaces glabrous or ciliate along margins. Margins entire. Lateral veins parallel, diverging from prominent midrib. Petioles 4–7 mm long; ligules 7–10 mm long, entire, glabrous or sparsely pubescent, ciliate along margins, sheaths ciliate along margins. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in peduncles arising laterally from rhizome, 6–15 cm long, subterranean and horizontal for the most part bracts reddish, pubescent. in spicate inflorescences forming a compact head, subglobose, 3–5.5 cm wide, occurring at soil level, bracts closely imbricate, purplish red, pubescent, ciliate along margins, acuminate, the sterile ones ovate, 2.7–4 cm long, 1.8–2.4 cm wide, fertile bracts oblong–oblanceolate, 2.7–3.5 cm long, 1.2–2 cm wide, bracteoles red, ca. 3.5 cm long. Flowers slightly fragrant, bisexual (perfect), zygomorphic, pedicellate. Calyx 3-lobed, the lobes unequal, puberulent, red, 2–2.5 cm long. Corolla adnate with the stamens into a floral tube, distally 3-lobed, corolla lobes red, 1.5–1.8 cm long, sparsely puberulent, the tube pink, ca. 2 cm long, curved, puberulent. Stamens 5, in 2 whorls, only the posterior one of the inner whorl fertile, the other 2 members of inner whorl connate to form a highly variable, often conspicuous labellum; labellum peach-colored, with a yellowish median band, somewhat ruffled, 1.2–1.8 cm long, 1.1–1.5 cm wide, entire, slightly emarginate and recurved at apex, the lower part adnate to the staminal column forming a tube longer than the floral tube; distinct part of filament ca. 1 mm long; anther ca. 5 mm long, the thecae villous. Ovary inferior, with 2 variously developed apical nectary glands, 3-celled, sometimes incompletely so, rarely 1-celled, placentation axile, parietal (or essentially basal), or rarely free-central; ovules usually numerous; style filiform, often enveloped in a groove of the fertile stamen and embraced by the thecae; stigma various, often papillose and protruding beyond anther. Ovary ca. 5 mm long, villous.

Fruit: Fruit indehiscent; obovoid or subglobose; subterete or angular; smooth or somewhat warty. Seeds arillate.

Ploidy:

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