AMORPHOPHALLUS MULLENDERSII

PROTOLOGUE: Amorphophallus mullendersii Malaisse & Bamps, published in Bull. Jard. Bot. Natl. Belg. 62: 176 (1993).

Amorphophallus mullendersii Malaisse & Bamps sp. nov.; affinis Amorphophallus teuszii (Engl.) N.E. Br. spatha profunde lobata sed spathae lobis 6 versus 3 stigmate convexo versus concavo spadicisque appendice quam spatha multo longiore versus leviter breviore valde differt. — Type: ZAIRE, Kasai Oriental, Kambaye, disséminé près de l'eau, sept. 1930 (fl.), Quarré 2040 (BR holotype).

DISTRIBUTION: S. DR Congo to NE. Angola: Angola, DR Congo.

DISTRIBUTION NOTE: DR Congo: Kasaï-Oriental (Kambaye, the type locality) and the former Shaba (Kaniama, and the Lufupa River between Kyamasumba and Busanga)².

SPECIES DESCRIPTION:

Translated from protologue: A perennial herb, entirely glabrous, with an underground tuber, globose-flattened, 6 cm in diameter and 2.5 cm high. Leaf solitary, appearing after flowering, known only from a fragmentary drawing made from a living plant grown at Lubumbashi.²

INFLORESCENCE:

Translated from protologue: Inflorescence solitary; peduncle 8 cm long and 3-5 cm in diameter, subtended by 2 straw-coloured cataphylls reaching 6.5 cm long and 0.7 cm wide; spathe more or less funnel-shaped, split to the base and forming in its lower part a greenish-white to pale purple pseudotube 4.5 cm high and 2.5-3.5 cm across at mid-height, more or less constricted at the top and completely smooth within; upper part (the limb) purple-violet, spreading at anthesis and reaching 13 cm across, the margin lobed to as much as two-thirds the length of the limb; lobes 6, oval, 2.5-3.5 cm wide; spadix long-fusiform, blackish purple, 25-35 cm long; female zone basal, 13-21 mm high and 7-8 mm in diameter; male zone contiguous with it, 25-35 mm high and 7-8 mm in diameter; sterile appendix 20-29 cm long and 5 mm in diameter in its lower part, slightly narrowed at the base. Male flowers numerous and contiguous; stamens most often grouped in twos, obovoid, 2 mm high and about 1.5 mm at their widest, with 2 thecae each opening by 2 apical pores. Female flowers in a more or less spiral arrangement; ovary with 1 locule and 1 ovule, 2.5 mm high and 2 mm in diameter, sprinkled with small whitish incrustations; placentation basal; stigma subsessile, shaped like a mushroom cap, covered with papillae. Fruits unknown.²

ECOLOGY:

Found scattered near water, in tree savanna and on rocky savanna slopes near rivers; altitude: c. 900-920 m²

DISTRIBUTION MAPS:

ETYMOLOGY:

Dedicated to W. Mullenders, who first recognised the plant as new: in his 1954 study of the Kaniama vegetation he called it "Amorphophallus kaniamae", without ever describing it.²

NOTES:

1. By its spathe cut into six lobes, Amorphophallus mullendersii is easily distinguished from all other African species except Amorphophallus teuszii, whose original description reports three lobes (later observations extended this to three to seven); the other characters of the diagnosis — the convex stigma and the sterile appendix much longer than the spathe — separate the two clearly.²

REFERENCES:

1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Amorphophallus mullendersii Malaisse & Bamps

2. Bull. Jard. Bot. Natl. Belg. 62: 176 (1993) — protologue.

3. Revision der afrikanischen Arten der Gattung Amorphophallus (Araceae). Englera 25: 1-263 (2003)