AMORPHOPHALLUS LYRATUS

PROTOLOGUE: Amorphophallus lyratus (Roxb.) Kunth, published in Enum. Pl. 3: 34 (1841). The protologue is reproduced below.

SYNONYMS:

HOMOTYPIC SYNONYMS: Arum lyratum Roxb. in Fl. Ind., ed. 1832. 3: 508 (1832) Conophallus lyratus (Roxb.) Schott in Syn. Aroid.: 35 (1856)

OTHER NAMES: Udavee-Kundee (Telugu)

DISTRIBUTION: SE. India: India.

DISTRIBUTION NOTE: India: the hills of the Northern Circars (Eastern Ghats)³.

SPECIES DESCRIPTION:

As Arum lyratum: Root tuberous, pretty smooth, and something like a large potato. Leaves radical, one, two or three, petioled, tripinnatifid; divisions very unequal; the exterior ones compound, larger than the others, pointed, and obliquely oblong, sometimes scolloped, smooth; the inferior ones small and obtuse. Petioles one or two feet long, striated, clouded, swelled at the base; and there sheathing. Berries the size of a small cherry, red, smooth, one-seeded.³

ECOLOGY:

Grows in moist places amongst the Circar mountains³

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin lyratus, "lyre-shaped", for the lyrate leaflets — Roxburgh's epithet for the plant he knew as Arum lyratum, taken up by Kunth when he transferred it to Amorphophallus in 1841.²

NOTES:

1. The roots are eaten by the natives of the mountains, but require two or three boilings and some particular care in the dressing to render them inoffensive, and nourishing.³

2. Amorphophallus lyratus remains one of the least-known Indian members of the genus. Kunth himself listed it among the species imperfecte notae — the imperfectly known — and no inflorescence has ever been formally described; Roxburgh's account of the leaf and berries, made from Circar plants, is still the substance of what is known.²

REFERENCES:

1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Amorphophallus lyratus (Roxb.) Kunth

2. Enum. Pl. 3: 34 (1841) — protologue.

3. Flora Indica; or descriptions of Indian plants, ed. 1832, 3: 508 (Arum lyratum)