Amorphophallus kiusianus (Makino) Makino

Tuber Morphology

The tuber of Amorphophallus kiusianus is depressed globose, up to about 20 cm in diameter and 12 cm high. Japanese specimens show no offset development, while mainland Chinese specimens have a few sessile, globose offsets.

Leaf Presence

It has a solitary leaf.

Petiole Coloration

The petiole is glossy, dirty olive - green or grayish green, with narrowly oval or irregular whitish or very pale greenish spots and numerous tiny dark green dots.

Petiole Dimensions

It measures up to about 65 × 4 cm and is glabrous.

Leaf Blade Characteristics

The leaf blade is 60 - 90 cm in diameter, with winged rachises distal from basal main branchings.

Leaflet Morphology

Leaflets are bright green adaxially with a narrow pale violet margin, narrowly elliptic to lanceolate, 6 - 20 × 3 - 4.5 cm, with an undulate margin and a moderately to long acuminate apex.

Inflorescence Structure

The inflorescence is solitary and long pedunculate.

Peduncle Traits

The peduncle has the same color as the petiole, 40 - 100 cm long (up to about 120 cm in fruit) and 1.5 - 4 cm in diameter.

Spathe Outer Coloration

The spathe is dark greenish, greenish pinkish, or glossy dark purplish - brown on the outside, with small, whitish spots and a narrow, reddish violet line on the margin.

Spathe Inner Coloration

Inside, it is pale pinkish with a purplish base, purplish and greenish, or entirely dark brown, with or without a greenish margin.

Spathe Base Morphology

The base outside is dark green or dark greenish - brown, with small, rounded whitish spots and blackish green veins, triangular with a rounded base, 9 - 25 × 4 - 13 cm, and is shallowly or clearly constricted between the base and the limb.

Spathe Limb Structure

The limb is first oblique, then reflexes and bends downward, with a reflexed or undulate margin.

Spathe Base Inner Traits

The base inside is dark purple with numerous ± distant, conic warts, occasionally with small, whitish spots.

Spadix Characteristics

The spadix is sessile or subsessile, 9 - 22 cm long, shorter than, equal to, or longer than the spathe.

Female Zone Morphology

The female zone is slightly conic, 1 - 4 × 0.5 - 2 cm.

Ovary Traits

The ovary is bright pale green, ± obovoid, angulate in cross - section, about 2.5 mm high and 2 mm in diameter, 2 - loculed.

Style Characteristics

The style is bright pale green or dark brown, nearly absent, about 0.2 × 1 mm, bifurcate at the apex.

Stigma Morphology

The stigma is pale greenish gray, shallowly or distinctly 2 - lobed - sinuous, slightly oval in cross - section, about 0.8 mm high and 1.5 mm in diameter, minutely papillate.

Staminode Structure

Staminodes between the male and female zones are isolated or in groups of 2 - 4, or together with functional stamens as part of the lowermost male flowers.

Male Zone Traits

The male zone is cylindric or slightly obconic, 2.5 - 4.5 × 0.5 - 2 cm.

Male Flower Composition

Male flowers consist of 4 or 5 stamens.

Appendix Morphology

The appendix is fusiform - conic or narrowly fusiform, 4 - 16 cm long, 1 - 3 cm in diameter near the base, with an acute or obtuse apex, entirely blackish or with scattered, tiny green spots, or entirely dark greenish, glossy, glabrous or with shallow depressions, base grooved, otherwise naked or with scattered, thin, violet - brown hairs emerging from depressions.

Pollen Traits

Pollen is striate - areolate and released in strings.

Infructescence Structure

The infructescence is cylindric, 5 - 22 × 3 - 4.5 cm, sometimes with the dried spathe base remaining.

Berry Characteristics

Berries are glossy, starting as bright green, turning pinkish purple and finally deep blue, rounded or oval, about 1 × 0.8 - 1 cm, 2 - seeded.

Seed Morphology

Seeds are oval in longitudinal section, flattened on one side, about 8 × 6 × 4 mm, with a black, moderately glossy, minutely rugulose testa.