AMORPHOPHALLUS TINEKEAE
PROTOLOGUE: Amorphophallus tinekeae Hett. & A.Vogel, published in Blumea 46: 276 (2001).
Amorphophallus tinekeae Hett. & A. Vogel, spec. nov. Amorphophallo borneensi persimilis, pedunculo spathae longitudine semper breviore ad aequilongo, stigmatibus valde zygomorphis styli apice sublateralibus differt. - Typus: Hetterscheid H.AM.830-T (holo L, spirit coll.), E Malaysia, Sabah, Gomantong Caves (coll. from a plant cultivated in the Leiden Bot. Garden; orig. coll. M. van Balgooy).
DISTRIBUTION: N. Borneo: Borneo.
DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Malaysia: Sabah, the Gomantong Caves - the only locality known.².
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Tuber subglobose, about 20 cm across and 13 cm high, off-white, the surface with several raised areas, developing no offsets. Petiole to 160 cm long and 5 cm across, slightly rugulose near the base and otherwise smooth, the background off-white and nearly entirely covered by small transverse, very dark blackish green, crack-like spots together with scattered larger elongate-elliptic dirty whitish spots, these with or without a dirty olive-brown centre. Lamina to 160 cm across, the rachises winged almost to the base; leaflets elliptic to elongate-elliptic, acuminate, 7-26 cm long and 3-9 cm across, slightly leathery, the upper surface glossy mid-green.²
INFLORESCENCE:
Inflorescence solitary and short-peduncled; peduncle 13-36 cm long and 1-2 cm across, smooth, as the petiole. Spathe transversely oval, 18-35 cm long and 16-32 cm across, leathery, the limb oblique and, after anthesis, actively curving forward to close the spathe; outside the lower half of the base bright green with thin maroon veins and a very few scattered small white spots, flushed above with greyish to blackish maroon and with prominently maroon to blackish purple veins, the limb outside largely green with brownish purple venation and generally flushed above with dirty purplish brown; inside the base deep maroon, the central part whitish greenish, the upper part flushed with greyish maroon, the limb inside pale green with the margin flushed dirty purplish brown and incurved; the base within densely verruculate and with several lengthwise grooves. Spadix sessile, longer than the spathe, 21-58 cm long; female zone slightly conic, 2.5-7 by 1.8-3 cm, the flowers congested or slightly distant; male zone slightly obconic, 3-6.5 by 1.3-2.3 cm, the flowers congested; appendix elongate narrowly conic, 15.5-45 cm long and 1.3-3 cm across at a third from the base, gradually tapering to an acute top, the surface dark maroon and slightly rugulose, the base with a few narrow grooves. Ovaries depressed globose, 3 mm across and 2 mm high, bilocular, dark maroon; style 4 mm long and 1 mm across, maroon; stigma laterally placed and highly asymmetrical, ovate seen from above, the long axis about 3 mm and the short axis 2 mm, about 1 mm thick, 1-lobed with the lobe apical on the style and conic, a shallow slightly curved depression below the lobe, the surface echinulate, dirty yellowish brown. Male flowers of 4 or 5 stamens; stamens about 2 mm long and 1.5-2 mm across, the filaments 1.2 mm long and half connate; anthers 0.8 mm long, truncate, off-white, the connective off-white or brownish. Pollen psilate, ellipsoidal, 62 µm long.²
ETYMOLOGY:
Named for Tineke Roelfsema of the Netherlands, whose support funded the Asian collecting trips of her co-author A. Vogel, on which much of the living material of the genus now in Leiden was gathered.²
NOTES:
1. Amorphophallus tinekeae belongs to a group of species confined to Borneo and comes closest to Amorphophallus borneensis, from which it differs in a consistently short peduncle, strongly asymmetrical stigmas and a comparatively narrow appendix.²
2. The stigma sits to one side of the style rather than on top of it, and is markedly one-sided in shape - the character the Latin diagnosis rests on.²
3. The spathe does not simply wither after flowering; it actively curves forward and closes.²
4. The spadix can reach 58 cm, more than twice the length of the spathe.²
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Amorphophallus tinekeae Hett. & A.Vogel
2. Blumea 46: 276 (2001) — protologue.
3. Alan Galloway — Amorphophallus tinekeae, alangallowaybotanicals.com.