Thaumatophyllum xanadu

Terrestrial; with leaves extended individual plants to 1.6 m wide; stems to 1 m or more tall, 3-5-5 cm diam.; internodes short, dark .brown, scurfy; leaf scars conspicuous, 2.7-3.4 cm wide, 9-18 mm high; intravaginal squamules minute, no more than 1.5 mm long; sap acrid, pungent; roots 9-14 mm diam., reddish brown with longitudinal fissures; cataphylls to 21 cm long, medium green, narrowly and deeply sulcate with a medial rib toward the base, drying dark brown and persisting intact; 
LEAVES: Petioles sheathed. 3.5-5.5 cm at base, 43-51 cm long, 8-9 mm diam, D-shaped at base, soon becoming subterete, sharply and deeply sulcate, medium green, weakly glossy, flattened at an angle along the sulcus and otherwise finely and weakly ridged circumferentially, darker, somewhat brownish to purplish violet and sometimes weakly scurfy at apex and on petiolar plexus; geniculum more broadly sulcate, sometimes moderately "square-grooved"; blades pinnatisect, subcoriaceous, 25-31 cm long, 17-25 cm wide, the two halves of the blades directed upward at 20-30° angle to the midrib, dark green and moderately glossy on upper surface, slightly paler and weakly glossy below; primary lateral lobes ca. 10 on each side, weakly falcate toward the apex, narrowly rounded at the apex; the sinuses 7-10 cm deep; posterior lobes short, bent upward with their upper surfaces directed toward the apex; sinus arcuate to parabolic when flattened; midrib broadly sulcate to flattened and slightly to moderately paler above, narrowly rounded to bluntly acute and moderately paler, sometimes purplish violet below (whitish toward apex); pri-mary lateral veins one per lobe, somewhat off-center on the lobes, slightly closer to the posterior margin of the lobes, slightly paler in shallow valleys above, thickly convex, yellow-green to creamy white and moderately paler below; minor veins fine, darker than surface; basal veins 4-5 per side, the first free or nearly free to the base, 2nd & 3rd acroscopic, 3rd or 4th straight to the tip of the lobes, usually with 1 or 2 basioscopic and much smaller; posterior ribs (1.5)2.5-3(4) cm long, naked 2.5-3.0 cm; 
INFLORESCENCES 1 per axil, 3-5 per plant in flower; peduncle 8-11 cm long, 1.0-2.0 X 1.2-2 cm diam; spathe coriaceous, (8.2)12.8-18 cm long, (1.7)2.8-3.3 cm diam., dark purple-brown, sometimes paler within on tube; spadix 8.5-12.5 cm long, cream; staminate spadix (5.5)8.5-10.5 cm long; sterile portion 3.1-5.2 cm long, 1.7-2.1 cm diam at base, 1.5-1.8 cm diam at apex, sterile male flowers 6.0 mm long, 1.0 rum dia.ni. at apex, tapered toward the base; fertile portion 4-5.5 cm long, 1.7-1.8 cm diam, 1.3 cm diam 1 cm from apex, protruding up to 1.5 cm from the spathe; pistillate spadix (2.5)3.0-3.7 cm long in front, 1.7 cm long in rear, 1.5-1.8 cm diam at apex, 1.8-2.0 cm diam midway; stigmas 1-1.5 mm diam, "with one lobe for each locule, the lobes oblong, 0.6 mm long; gynoecium (6)7-8 locular, ovules 2 per locule on axile placenta, inserted in lower half of septum, 0.6 mm long.

Thaumatophyllum Xanadu

Thaumatophyllum xanadu

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