AMORPHOPHALLUS XIEI
PROTOLOGUE: Amorphophallus xiei H.Li & Z.L.Dao, published in Novon 16: 240 (2006).
DISTRIBUTION: China (W. Yunnan): China South-Central.
DISTRIBUTION NOTE: China: western Yunnan, in Longchuan. It is endemic there.⁴.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Tuber dark brown outside and pink within, depressed globose, 7-8 cm high and about 16 cm across, the root scars not swollen, producing no offsets. Leaf solitary; petiole pink at the base and green to deep green above, sometimes with inconspicuous paler rhombic, linear or irregular spots with a dark centre, or with scattered very small dark green dots, 60-80 cm long, hairless. Leaf blade 60-120 cm across; leaflets elliptic, to about 23 by 8 cm, green above and pale beneath, the apex acuminate. At the main branching points of the blade the leaf carries a bulbil sitting on its own surface - brown, depressed globose to subglobose, to 3 cm across.⁴
INFLORESCENCE:
Inflorescence solitary; peduncle coloured as the petiole, to 18 cm long and 1.3-1.5 cm across. Spathe almost erect, bell-shaped, about 18 by 10 cm; outside very pale whitish pink with scattered dot-like dark brown marks, the base purple and the margin sometimes reddish; inside dark pink, the base minutely warted. Spadix sessile, longer than the spathe, 23-24 cm long; the flowers unisexual and naked. Female zone cylindric, 4-4.5 by 1.5-2 cm, the flowers congested; ovary pink to reddish pink, obconic, about 3 mm high and 2 mm across, one-chambered; style almost absent; stigma nearly sessile, yellow, strongly depressed and disc-shaped, about 0.5 mm high and 3 mm across - wider than the ovary itself - and slightly 5- or 6-lobed to irregularly 8-lobed. Male zone cylindric or slightly obconic, 6.5-7 by 2.6-3.7 cm; male flowers of four or five stamens; stamens almost entirely free, about 2 by 1.5 mm; filaments about 1 mm; anthers off-white with a pinkish apex, truncate, about 1 mm, the pores apical and slightly elongate. Appendix off-white or pale pink, fusiform-conic and flattened from the sides in larger individuals, about 11 by 5 cm, smooth. Fruit red when ripe, ovoid, about 1.5 cm by 5 mm.⁴
ECOLOGY:
Found on forest margins and in tropical thickets between 900 and 1100 m. It flowers in April and fruits from May to November.⁴
ETYMOLOGY:
Named for Xie, in the Chinese name 谢君蘑芋 xie jun mo yu - mo yu being the Chinese word for this genus, the plant that yields konjac flour.⁴
NOTES:
1. The leaf carries bulbils on its own surface, at the main branching points of the blade, and they reach 3 cm across. Only two other species in the genus do this - Amorphophallus bulbifer and Amorphophallus muelleri - and the character is otherwise unknown in Amorphophallus.⁴
2. It is a crop. The species is grown for food in the valleys of the Nanwan and Husa rivers, in the Irrawaddy system.⁴
3. ⚠ Whether it is a species at all is openly doubted in the account that describes it. One of the authors of the Flora of China treatment records that it differs from Amorphophallus bulbifer only in colour, and that molecular work makes it the closest relative of that species - if not simply a somaclonal variant of it, taken into cultivation and perhaps escaped from it. Both Amorphophallus bulbifer and Amorphophallus muelleri reproduce without fertilisation and carry 39 chromosomes.⁴
4. The stigma is broader than the ovary that bears it, and the style is all but absent.⁴
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Amorphophallus xiei H.Li & Z.L.Dao
2. Novon 16: 240 (2006) — protologue.
3. Alan Galloway — Amorphophallus xiei, alangallowaybotanicals.com.