AMORPHOPHALLUS HIRTUS
PROTOLOGUE:Amorphophallus hirtus N.E.Br., published in Journal of the Linnean Society, Botany 36: 181 (1903). The protologue is reproduced below.
DISTRIBUTION: SC. & S. Taiwan: Taiwan.
DISTRIBUTION NOTE: iNaturalist: Kaohsiung, Tainan, Changhua, Pingtung, Yunlin, Chiayi City, Nantou, Taichung, Taitung
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Tuber globose or depressed-globose, 3-15 cm in diam., 2- 9 cm high, weighing to ca. 1500 gr., whitish, turning greyish brown at exposure, seasonally producing numerous, thin, rhizomatous offset tubers, these to 3 cm long and ca. 1 cm in diam. Leaf solitary; petiole 20-100 cm long, 1.0-2.5 cm in diam. at the base, turgid, smooth, dark green with numerous, tiny, blackish green spots or with larger, ± diamond-shaped, pale greyish green spots, these filled with numerous, dark green, elongate dots; lamina 30-120 cm in diam., highly dissected; leaflets ± obovate or elliptic-oval, 5.5-11 cm long, 2.5--4.5 cm in diam., long acuminate, ± succulent, upper side dark emerald green with a pinkish violet margin, venation on the upper side impressed.
INFLORESCENCE:
Inflorescence solitary, long-peduncled; peduncle as petiole, 38-125 cm long, 1--4 cm in diam. at the base; spathe campanulate, constricted between base and limb, broadly triangular, 13- 53 cm long, 12--45 cm in diam., acute, base strongly convolute, obliquely urceolate, thick-walled, outside pale green faintly flushed with purple or dark greyish green with numerous pale whitish green spots, the lower ones confluent, veins dark green, inside blackish maroon, covered with numerous shortly ridgelike, laterally compressed, fleshy warts, limb horizontally spreading or obliquely upturned, margin undulate, outside pale green flushed with purple-brown or dark greyish green with angulate, whitish green spots and margins dirty purple, without spots, inside maroonish flushed with green or with numerous small, rounded, sometimes confluent, whitish greenish spots, veins maroon. Spadix much longer than spathe, ± stipitate, 31-88.5 cm long, stipe 0.2-1.0 cm, male and female zone separated by a narrow, sterile zone; appendix huge and covered with long, flexuous hairs.
ECOLOGY:
Found in dense grassland (ca. 50-80 m alt.)
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin hirtus, “hairy” or “shaggy,” referring to the conspicuously oversized spadix appendix, which is clothed in long, flexuous hairs. This extraordinary hair covering is one of the defining features of the Taiwanese species and gives the inflorescence an unmistakable appearance.
NOTES:
1. Although a relative of Amorphophallus kiusianus, Amorphophallus hirtus cannot be mistaken for any other species because of its oversized, hairy appendix. The leaf is highly ornamental because of its numerous small leaflets with red margins. It produces blue berries after fertilization, as do all of its relatives.
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Amorphophallus hirtus N.E.Br.
2. Journal of the Linnean Society, Botany 36: 181 (1903) — protologue.
3. Alan Galloway — Amorphophallus hirtus, alangallowaybotanicals.com.