AMORPHOPHALLUS LONGISTYLUS
PROTOLOGUE: Amorphophallus longistylus Kurz ex Hook.f., published in The Flora of British India 6: 515 (1893). The protologue is reproduced below.
DISTRIBUTION: C. & S. Andaman Is.: Andaman Islands.
DISTRIBUTION NOTE: India: Andaman Islands — South Andaman (Kurz's original collection), Middle Andaman (Panchawati) and North Andaman (Ray Hill)³.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Tubers sub-globose, 5.0-6.5 cm diam. and 4-5 cm thick in vegetative phase, c. 6.2 cm diam. and 4.2 cm thick in reproductive phase. Petiole 43-71 cm long, surface uneven with white elongated or round thickened swellings or projections; pale greenish with greenish black and white mottles. Leaflets sessile, ovate to oblong, apex acuminate, 6.5-12.0 × 2.8-4.6 cm; base of leaflets on secondary rachises decurrent, leaflets on primary rachises usually not decurrent-based; greenish above, paler below with pinkish tinge along the veins, margins and tip; margin undulate.³
INFLORESCENCE:
Peduncle 30.5-42.5 cm long, 1.0-1.2 cm diam. Spathe erect, ovate-lanceolate, 18.5-23.5 × 9.5-10.5 cm, tip acute, basal convolute tube 7.5-14.0 cm high and 3.5-4.0 cm diam.; upper expanded limb portion with longitudinal shallow folds on either side of mid-portion; light purplish with greenish black blotches and small dark spots on outside, more on basal tube; smooth, dark purplish and verrucose at base, pale purplish and smooth above with few light greenish-black blotches above within. Spadix longer than spathe, exserted, 24-26 cm long, stipitate; stipe short, 0.2-0.4 cm long; female zone 2.4-3.2 cm; male zone 3.2-3.7 cm long; appendix 17-20 cm long, cylindric, gradually tapering to tip. Female flowers 60-80, loosely arranged, each 5-8 mm high, ovary 1.7-2.0 mm high, shallowly 3-5-lobed, greenish yellow, 3-5-locular, each locule with a single basal anatropous ovule; style 3-7 mm long, rarely with longitudinal ridges at upper portion, dark purplish; stigma 3-5-lobed, rarely 2-lobed, creamy. Male flowers dense, each c. 2 mm high, sessile, inconspicuously 2-lobed, yellowish-creamy with purplish tinge on connective at top.³
ECOLOGY:
Found in evergreen forest⁴
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin longus and stylus, for the long styles — at 3-7 mm among the longest in the genus, and the character by which the species stands apart in the keys. Kurz used the name in his 1866 Andaman report without a description; Hooker validated it in 1893.²
NOTES:
1. This is a very rare species and was left unknown until it was re-collected in 1997 from Middle Andaman, about 131 years after it was first collected by Kurz. The species is very distinct in having uneven surfaces of petioles and peduncles with bumps or swellings.³
2. Hooker's 1893 account was drawn up without seeing a living plant — it was described from a drawing in the Calcutta herbarium, made from Kurz's material.² One of the plants recollected in 1997 was introduced into the Calicut University Botanic Garden, where it flowered in May 1998 and allowed the first study of the inflorescence from life.⁴
3. Amorphophallus longistylus is the only species of sect. Amorphophallus endemic to India.⁴
STORY:
STORY TITLE: Drawn once, then lost for 131 years
Amorphophallus longistylus began as little more than a name. Sulpiz Kurz, exploring the Andaman Islands for the Indian Forest Department, listed it in his 1866 report without a description. When Joseph Hooker came to treat the species for the Flora of British India in 1893, he had no living plant and no flowering specimen — his entire account was drawn up from a drawing in the Calcutta herbarium, made from Kurz's material. A species validated from a picture of a plant one man had seen.
And then nothing. For 131 years, no botanist found it again. The species survived as a few lines in the Flora, an entry in checklists of the genus, a name attached to a drawing.
In December 1997, during fieldwork for a revision of Indian Araceae, M. Sivadasan and V. Abdul Jaleel recollected it in evergreen forest at Panchawati, Middle Andaman — the second authentic collection of the species since its discovery. A living plant was brought to the Calicut University Botanic Garden, and in May 1998 it flowered: the first inflorescence of Amorphophallus longistylus ever studied from life. The flowering confirmed both the identity and the name — the styles, at three to seven millimetres, are among the longest in the genus. Later collections extended the range to North Andaman, but the species remains what it has always been: an Andaman endemic, the only member of its section confined to India, and a reminder of how long a plant can hide inside its own name.
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Amorphophallus longistylus Kurz ex Hook.f.
2. The Flora of British India 6: 515 (1893) — protologue.
4. Rediscovery of Amorphophallus longistylus (Araceae), a little known rare endemic species from Middle Andaman, India. Rheedea 8(1): 103-106 (1998)