AMORPHOPHALLUS GOMBOCZIANUS
PROTOLOGUE: Amorphophallus gomboczianus Pic.Serm., published in Webbia 7: 348 (1950).
Unknown
SYNONYMS:
HOMOTYPIC SYNONYMS: Amorphophallus abyssinicus Gombócz in Ann. Hist.-Nat. Mus. Natl. Hung. 30: 3 (1936), nom. illeg.
DISTRIBUTION: Ethiopia: Ethiopia.
DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Amhara Region (City of Bahir Dar).
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Tuber disciform, to 25 cm in diam., no offset development. Leaf solitary; petiole to 100 cm long, pale brown with numerous creamy spots and fewer blackish green dots, or blackish purple with dark green spots; lamina to 100 cm in diam.; leaflets oval or obovate, to 12 cm long, acuminate.
INFLORESCENCE:
Inflorescence developing before the leaf, long-peduncled; peduncle to 100 cm long, as petiole; spathe to 35 cm long, erect, no constriction between base and limb, outside marbled bright green and dark green or olive-green, or creamy with blackish green dots, upwards shading to green, margin flushed with purple, inside basal half whitish with dark purple striations or dark purple marbling, upwards entirely creamy or greenish with a dark purple margin; base within smooth. Spadix longer than spathe, to ca. 40 cm long; appendix elongate conic, base swollen and echinate.
ETYMOLOGY:
Named in honor of Endre Gombocz (1882–1945), Hungarian botanist and plant systematist, who first described the species in 1936 as Amorphophallus abyssinicus. Because that name was already occupied, Pichi Sermolli published the replacement name Amorphophallus gomboczianus in 1950.
NOTES:
1. Amorphophallus gomboczianus resembles Amorphophallus hetterscheidii but lacks the hairs in the spathe base and has an echinate appendix base. It differs from the related Amorphophallus gallaensis. The latter is shallowly ridged inside the spathe base and has unilocular ovaries (vs. 2–3-locular in Amorphophallus gomboczianus).
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Amorphophallus gomboczianus Pic.Serm.
2. Webbia 7: 348 (1950) — protologue.
3. Alan Galloway — Amorphophallus gomboczianus, alangallowaybotanicals.com.