LIBRARY 



NEW YORK 

 ADDISONIA BOTANICAL 33 



GARDEN 



(Plate 241) 



AMORPHOPHALLUS BULBIFER 

 Bulblet-b earing Amorphophallus 



Native of Asia 



Family Araceae Arum Family 



Arum bulbiferum Roxb. Fl. Ind. 510. 1832. 

 Amorphophallus bulbifer Blume, Rumphia 1: 148. 1835. 



The species of Amorphophallus, of which over seventy-five are 

 recognized, are natives of Asia, Africa, and the eastern tropical 

 islands. They are mostly large herbs with huge ill-smelling calla- 

 like flowers, which appear before or at the same time as the leaves. 

 The tubers (corms) contain an acrid poisonous juice. Those of 

 some species, however, are used for food after the extraction of the 

 poison by washing, or its destruction by heat. The fresh tubers are 

 sometimes used medicinally. New plants may readily be grown by 

 removing the offsets from the corms, but owing to the disagreeable 

 odor when in flower, they are popular only as curiosities. 



The specimen from which our illustration was prepared was 

 secured by an exchange with the botanic garden at Edinburgh, 

 Scotland, in 1902. 



The bulblet-bearing amorphophallus is a terrestrial herb with a 

 rather small subglobose corm. The cylindric petioles, which are 

 three or four feet long, are green and pink streaked with green or 

 black. The leaves are three-forked with the divisions again forked, 

 and bearing solitary subglobose bulbels at the primary and second- 

 ary forks ; the ultimate leaf-segments are often decurrent and some- 

 ^ times confluent, lanceolate, ovate, elliptic, or somewhat obovate 

 and often acuminate. The erect spathe is sometimes eight inches 

 long, pale pink or yellowish, sometimes spotted or blotched with 

 green on the outside, rose-pink within. The male flowers are more 

 or less crowded on the spadix, and are borne just above the female. 



Percy Wilson. 



Explanation of Plate. Fig. 1. — Portion of leaf. Fig. 2. — Flowering scape. 

 Fig. 3. — Staminate flowers, X 4. Fig. 4. — Pistillate flower, X 4. 



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