Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Caulescent perennial herbs 1.5–3 m tall, with 3–5 basal leaves and 1 cauline leaf per aerial shoot.

Stems:

Roots: Fibrous root system.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades ovate, 30–110 cm long, 15–55 cm wide. Apex obtuse or subacuminate. Upper surfaces glabrate; surfaces dark green with paler green area along midrib on upper surface; lower surfaces grayish green and often tinged purple along margins, chartaceous. Margins entire. Closely parallel S-shaped lateral veins. Petioles 20–185 cm long, glabrate or minutely tomentose, pulvinus glabrous, slightly swollen, sheath tomentose at least along margins. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences 2–5 per shoot, laterally flattened, 10–25 cm long, 4.5–7.5 cm wide, erect but gradually becoming pendent after anthesis, peduncles 11–55 cm long, minutely tomentose, bracts 16–36, pale to dark yellow or greenish yellow, broadly reniform, distichous, persistent, erect, glabrate, minutely pilose along margins, bracteoles present. Flowers bisexual (perfect), zygomorphic. Calyx yellow, 12–21mm long. Corolla yellow to yellowish orange, the tube 31–36 mm long, the lobes unequal, 12–16 mm long, 4–6 mm wide. Staminodes lavender, callose staminode 11– 14 mm long, hooded staminode 6–9 mm long. Ovary inferior, glabrous.

Fruit: Capsules with three seeds; yellow; obovoid; 11–13.5 mm long; the calyx persistent. Seeds dark blue with white aril.

Ploidy: 2n = 22

Habitat: Forest understory.

Elevation Range: