AMORPHOPHALLUS PURPURASCENS

PROTOLOGUE: Amorphophallus purpurascens Kurz ex Hook.f., published in The Flora of British India 6: 515 (1893).

Amorphophallus purpurascens, Kurz mss.; leaflets elliptic-obovate, spathe small very long-peduncled cymbiform acute base shortly convolute, spadix shorter or rather longer than the spathe stout, appendage rather longer but little broader than the infl. stout elongate conoidal tip rounded. Pegu, Martaban, and in the Irrawaddy and Sittang Valleys, Kurz.

DISTRIBUTION: Myanmar: Myanmar.

DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Myanmar: Pegu and Martaban, and in the Irrawaddy and Sittang valleys, where Kurz collected it. Engler adds Kurz's gatherings at Scukyeglaf near the Seven Pagodas in Pegu, and on the eastern and western slopes of the Pegu Yoma.³.

SPECIES DESCRIPTION:

Tuber small, 2 in. diam., not bulbilliferous. Leaf small, 10 in. diam., 3-sect, with segments 3-5 by 1-2 in.; petiole 18 in., pale green.²

INFLORESCENCE:

Peduncle 16 in., red-purple, striate; wrapped at the base by short sheaths. Spathe, perhaps immature, 3 in., dark green, blue at the sides with red margins. Spadix 3 in.; infl. cylindric, stout, the male the longest; appendage nearly 2 in., not contracted at the base, white. Anthers very short. Stigma sessile, disciform, lobulate.²

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin purpurascens, “becoming purple”: the peduncle is red-purple and the spathe blue at the sides with red margins, so the whole inflorescence reads as purplish. Kurz coined the name in manuscript and Hooker published it.²

NOTES:

1. The spathe Hooker described may not have been fully grown - he notes it as perhaps immature, at 3 inches. Engler, working from Kurz's material later, gives the spathe as 7-10 cm.³

2. Engler's account adds what Hooker's does not: a hemispherical, depressed tuber about 5 cm across, a petiole to 4 dm, a lamina about 2.5 dm across, cataphylls 3-7 cm long, a peduncle 6-7 dm long and red-purple with stripes, and a spathe ovate-lanceolate and acute with a green limb, blue and red-margined.³

3. The species is known only from Myanmar, and only from Kurz's own collections.²

REFERENCES:

1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Amorphophallus purpurascens Kurz ex Hook.f.

2. The Flora of British India 6: 515 (1893) — protologue.

3. Amorphophallus purpurascens. Das Pflanzenreich IV.23C: 86 (1911), Engler's account with Fig. 30