AMORPHOPHALLUS SPECTABILIS

PROTOLOGUE: Amorphophallus spectabilis (Miq.) Engl., published in Monographiae Phanerogamarum V.2 (1879) P.316.

11. Amorphophallus spectabilis (Miq.) Engl.; folii segmentis I. maximis late sublyrato-pinnatifidis vel superne in lobos majores bipartitis, segmentis omnibus decurrentibus, majoribus tricuspidatis vel sinuato-lobatis, supremis majoribus confluentibus, minoribus ellipticis integris; pedunculo laevi, dimidium spathae longitudine aequante; spatha late lanceolata, acuminata inferne convoluta, maxima, sursum atro-purpurea; spadicis dimidium spathae aequantis inflorescentia feminea attenuata, mascula seorsum sensim ampliata, appendice elongato-conoidea, gracili, papillosa. - Conophallus spectabilis Miq. in Bot. Zeit. 1856 p. 564, Fl. Ind. Bat. III. 199; Schott Prodr. 128. Folii segmenta I. circ. 0,5 m. longa. Pedunculus fere 3 dm. longus. Spatha 6 dm. longa. Spadix 2,5 dm. longus. Java (fide Miquel).

SYNONYMS:

HOMOTYPIC SYNONYMS: Conophallus spectabilis Miq. in Bot. Zeitung (Berlin) 14: 564 (1856)

DISTRIBUTION: W. Jawa: Java.

DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Java: endemic to the west of the island, with gatherings from Mount Patuha and Mount Tikukur near Lake Patenggang, Burangrang and Cianjur, mostly between 1200 and 1700 m.⁵.

SPECIES DESCRIPTION:

Tuber up to 20 cm across. Leaf solitary; petiole almost smooth, dark green with grey and brown spots, 100-150 cm long. Lamina 100-150 cm across; the anterior and posterior primary rachises naked at the junction and narrowly winged further out; leaflets at the terminal branches lanceolate or elongate-elliptic, 13-30 cm long and 3-12 cm wide, with an acuminate tip 2.5-4 cm long and a narrowly decurrent base.⁵

INFLORESCENCE:

Inflorescence solitary; peduncle coloured as the petiole, 120-220 cm long. Spathe erect, 34-60 cm long and 15-25 cm across; the lower spathe oblong and deeply convolute, outside olive green with pale green spots that are paler at their edges and sometimes with larger whitish areas, becoming purple upwards, inside dark purple in the lower half with scattered warts at the base and pale whitish-green in the upper half; limb narrowly ovate with an acute tip and an undulate margin, glossy blackish-purple outside and darker at the edges, glossy dark maroon inside. Spadix sessile, much shorter than the spathe, 25-40 cm long; female zone cylindric, 2.5-8 cm long and 1-2 cm across, the pistils not closely packed; ovary subglobose, 0.1-0.2 cm high and 0.2-0.4 cm across, yellowish green and sometimes purple above, one-chambered with a single ovule on a basal placenta; style 0.3-0.5 mm long and 0.1 cm across, purple; stigma conic and asymmetric with one large peripheral lobe and a deep semicircular groove at its base, 0.1-0.2 cm high and as wide. Male zone gradually widening towards the apex, 2-9 cm long and 1.5-4 cm across at its widest; stamens 0.2-0.3 cm long and 0.1-0.2 cm across; anthers dumbbell-shaped when dry, 0.7-2 mm wide, much shorter in the lowest part of the zone, glossy dark purple, the connectives broad and sometimes raised, the thecae opening by apical or nearly lateral pores; filaments 0.8-1.3 mm long, connate at the base or throughout. Appendix somewhat swollen at the base though not obviously so when dry, narrowly fusiform-conic and tapering to an obtuse, acute or subacute tip, pale brownish-purple or yellowish-brown, 10-23 cm long and 2.5-6 cm across, densely covered with small elongate warts. Fruit a sub-oblong orange-red berry with a single seed.⁵

ECOLOGY:

Found in montane forest between 800 and 1800 m.⁵

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin spectabilis, “worth looking at, showy” - the spathe reaches 6 dm and is dark purple in its upper part. Miquel published the plant first as Conophallus spectabilis in 1856, and Engler moved it into Amorphophallus.²

NOTES:

1. The name rests on Conophallus spectabilis, published by Miquel in the Botanische Zeitung for 1856 and taken up again the same year in his Flora Indiae Batavae. Engler moved it into Amorphophallus in 1879.²

2. Engler's own account runs to four sentences of measurement and gives the range as Java on Miquel's authority. Everything now known of the flowers comes from later work.²

3. ⚠ The name has a nomenclatural problem. Bull had already used Amorphophallus spectabilis for an African plant, described from a sterile and inadequate specimen in a horticultural catalogue, and his name is the earlier of the two - which makes Engler's combination a later homonym. Two remedies have been proposed: coin a new name for the Javanese plant, or conserve Engler's name against Bull's, on the grounds that Bull's was never taken up for the African species and is not in Index Kewensis, while Engler's has been used for the Javanese plant ever since.⁵

4. Miquel cited no collector, so the name had no specimen to anchor it. A sheet in Leiden gathered in Java by an unnamed collector, annotated in Miquel's own hand as this species and agreeing with the protologue, has been put forward as the lectotype. Another Miquel-annotated sheet could not be used because it is labelled as a different plant.⁵

5. The spadix is much shorter than the spathe - 25-40 cm against 34-60 cm - so the inflorescence is dominated by the spathe rather than by the appendix, and the peduncle beneath it can reach 2.2 m.⁵

6. Each ovary carries a single ovule, and the ripe berry holds one seed.⁵

REFERENCES:

1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Amorphophallus spectabilis (Miq.) Engl.

2. Monographiae Phanerogamarum V.2 (1879) P.316 — protologue.

3. Alan Galloway — Amorphophallus spectabilis, alangallowaybotanicals.com.

4. iNaturalist: Amorphophallus spectabilis

5. Amorphophallus Blume ex Decaisne (Araceae - Thomsonieae) in Java. Reinwardtia 13(1): 1-12 (2009)