AMORPHOPHALLUS GALBRA
PROTOLOGUE: Amorphophallus galbra F.M.Bailey, published in Botany Bulletin (Department of Agriculture Queensland) 7: 68 (1893). The protologue is reproduced below.
SYNONYMS:
HETEROTYPIC SYNONYMS: Amorphophallus angustilobus F.M.Bailey in Queensl. Fl. 5: 1696 (1902) Amorphophallus glabra F.M.Bailey in Bot. Bull. Dept. Agric. Queensland 7: 68 (1893), orth. var.
DISTRIBUTION: New Guinea to N. Australia: New Guinea, Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Tuber depressed-globose, to ca. 30 cm in diam., ca. 10 cm high. Leaf solitary; petiole ca. 30–100 cm long, smooth or slightly rugulose, uniformly pale green or an olive-green background color with irregular, medium green, white, brown and black spots; lamina to ca. 150 cm in diam.; leaflets lanceolate or elliptic-lanceolate, 11–20 cm long, 3.5–5.0 cm in diam., long-acuminate.
INFLORESCENCE:
Inflorescence solitary, long-peduncled; peduncle as petiole, ca. 12–ca. 100 cm long, 0.5–2 cm in diam.; spathe lanceolate, erect, 6–36 cm long, 2.5–ca. 10 cm in diam., opening very narrow, margins of the limb often strongly sinuous, outside plain green, off-white or pale brownish, or variously spotted with black, dark green, pale green and white, inside off-white, base within yellow, sometimes with a dirty brownish flush, verruculose. Spadix sessile, shorter than spathe, ca. 5–27 cm long.
ECOLOGY:
Found in rain forests and monsoon forests in undergrowth, woodland, scrub and fully open sites
ETYMOLOGY:
The epithet galbra preserves an Indigenous Australian name for the plant, rather than deriving from Latin or Greek. When F.M. Bailey described the species in 1893 from material collected along the Barron River in northern Queensland, collector E. Cowley recorded that the plant was locally known as “Galbra,” and Bailey adopted that name directly as the specific epithet. This is significant because galbra has occasionally been interpreted as a typographical error for glabra, Latin for “smooth” or “hairless”; contemporary Australian botanical references explicitly reject that interpretation and confirm that Bailey intended to preserve the recorded Aboriginal name. The surviving historical record does not specify the language from which “Galbra” was taken, so its more precise linguistic origin remains uncertain.
NOTES:
1. The description is partly based on Hay (1988). Aroideana 11(1): 14. Amorphophallus galbra is morphologically similar to the Javan Amorphophallus sagittarius (see descr.) and differs primarily by a slightly different spathe shape and a different pollen type. Hay (op. cit.) mentions several specimens from Irian Jaya, but they are all sterile and therefore not necessarily belonging to this species. The most remarkable feature of this species is undoubtedly its rather fruity scent.
2. Grow in a loose, well-drained fertile soil. The tuber is best left in the soil when dormant.
3. Michael Pascall, curator of Whyanbeel Arboretum in Far North Queensland, grew seed of a form of Amorphophallus galbra with a strongly spotted petiole, collected at Mount Amos near Cooktown by Marilyn Van Den Burgh. Only one of the resulting seedlings had a spotted petiole; the rest were all green. In his words, the only true way to identify these variable plants is by the flower.⁵
HYBRIDS:
Amorphophallus discophorus × Amorphophallus galbra
Amorphophallus galbra × (Amorphophallus decus-silvae × Amorphophallus variabilis)
Amorphophallus galbra × Amorphophallus variabilis
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Amorphophallus galbra F.M.Bailey
2. Botany Bulletin (Department of Agriculture Queensland) 7: 68 (1893) — protologue.
3. Alan Galloway — Amorphophallus galbra, alangallowaybotanicals.com.