usually found lying on the ground, is the most striking 
feature of this and some closely allied species. Of its use, 
only a guess has been hazarded—that it may lead wingless 
insects into the spathe, and so to the stamens in one case, 
and to the ovaries in another, and thus effect the fertiliza- 
tion of the latter. 3 : 
The great tubers are, as of allied species, used for food in 
times of famine, after maceration and fermentation to dissipate 
the acrid poisonous principle which they contain. 
Drscr. Zuder the size of a large potato. Leaf solitary ; 
petiole sheathed at the base, dirty green mottled with brown, 
as thick as the thumb; leaflets three, petiolulate, six to eight 
inches long, broadly cordate ovate, long-acuminate, strongly 
nerved, deep green above with a blood-red edge, pale beneath; 
petiolules half to two-thirds of an inch long, laterally com- 
pressed, with blood-red edges and streaked sides. Peduncle 
lateral, two to three inches long, paler than the petiole and 
much more slender. Spathe five to six inches long; lower 
convolute portion cylindric, upper elliptic-ovate concave, 
with an acuminate recurved tip, deep purple inside, striped — 
with white, greenish or paler purple outside. Spadiz cylindric, 
contracted below into a short stipes, tip produced into a 
twisted and flexuous filiform tip, which is twenty inches 
long. Ovaries occupying about one to one and a half inches 
of the spadix, flagon-shaped or ovoid ; stigma sessile, discoid; 
ovules 3, basal, erect.—./. D. H. 
ea 
Fig. 1, Spadix:—of the natural size ; 2, ovary ; 3, vertical and 4, transverse 
section of ditto :—-all magnified. 
