AMORPHOPHALLUS SPARSIFLORUS

PROTOLOGUE: Amorphophallus sparsiflorus Hook.f., published in The Flora of British India 6: 516 (1893).

9. Amorphophallus sparsiflorus, Hook. f.; spathe with an ovate-oblong suberect acute limb the basal margins revolute round the mouth of the infundibular tube, spadix much shorter than the spathe, appendage fusiformly conoid as long as the infl., male and fem. fl. scattered. PERAK; Maxwell's Hill, Wray (No. 111), Kunstler.

SYNONYMS:

HOMOTYPIC SYNONYMS: Amorphophallus microspadix Engl. & Gehrm. in H.G.A.Engler (ed.), Pflanzenr., IV, 23C: 94 (1911), nom. illeg.

DISTRIBUTION: Pen. Malaysia: Peninsular Malaysia.

DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Peninsular Malaysia: Perak, on Maxwell's Hill, where Wray and Kunstler gathered it.².

SPECIES DESCRIPTION:

Tuber orange-shaped. Leaf bearing a bulbil at the top of the petiole, green shaded with red or brown; leaflets 7, shortly stalked, 6-8 by 1½ inches [about 15-20 by 4 cm], oblanceolate, acuminate.²

INFLORESCENCE:

Peduncle 1-2½ inches [about 2.5-6 cm], the sheaths longer and linear. Spathe 5 inches [about 13 cm]; tube 1¼ inches [about 3 cm], pale red-brown spotted with purplish-brown. Spadix 3½ inches [about 9 cm]. Anthers minute, very short. Ovaries small, globose; style very short; stigma capitate.²

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin sparsus, “scattered” or “sparse,” and florus, “flowered,” referring to the unusually lax arrangement of the flowers on the spadix. The 1996 treatment considered this sparse disposition of the flowers sufficient to distinguish the species from all other Asiatic Amorphophallus.

NOTES:

1. The leaf carries a bulbil at the top of the petiole, so the plant can propagate itself without seed.²

2. The spadix is much shorter than the spathe, and the male and female flowers are scattered rather than packed together - the two characters the original diagnosis rests on.²

3. ⚠ The same epithet has been used for a second, African plant. In 1911 Engler and Gehrmann transferred Engler's Hydrosme sparsiflora of 1892 into Amorphophallus under this name. That combination is later than Hooker's name of 1893 and does not affect it, and the African plant had in any case already been named Amorphophallus laxiflorus by N. E. Brown in 1901.²

REFERENCES:

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

2. The Flora of British India 6: 516 (1893) — protologue.

3. Aroideana 19 (1996):P7 - 131

4. Das Pflanzenreich IV.23c (Araceae-Lasioideae), Fig. 32: 89 (1911)

Additional photos by Bruno Antony and James Sim