Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/587

are membranaceous wings along the sides of the decurrent bases of the segments. Segments lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, parallel-veined, pale green, entirely glabrous ; margins entire. Scape solitary, 2-4in. long, cylindric, greenish, mottled with white spots, very thickly verrucose, invested below with 2 or 3 imbricated scales or bracts, linear-lanceolate, tough, fleshy, rose-coloured, mottled with green or purple spots. Spathe large, leathery, marescent,* large ovate, l-l½ft. long, very broad, erect; below, of fleshy substance, infundibuliform, convolute ; above membranous, broadly campanulate, patulous, with undulate curled margins. The convoluted part, in its greatest circumference, is about l½ft. ; externally, speckled with bright green dots and pale yellowish-greenish dots ; internally, purple at base, with very thick fleshy warts thickest and deepest-coloured near the scape, paler and less dense as they approach the mid-part of the infundibular portion ; the mid-part is conspicuously greenish-yellowish, without any warts. Spadix projecting distinctly beyond the spathe, erect, thick, club-shaped, almost half-way from below cylindrical and pistil -bearing, thence upward it is pear-shaped and thick, bearing anthers ; above this part lies the apical appendage or club, expanding into a globosely conoid, irregularly formed mass when young, which becomes fungating and sinuously lobed as it matures. The texture internally is spongy, fibrous, lacunose, externally corrugated, brownish-purple, resembling soft leather, with minute warts or projections alternating in regular order with shallow depressions between. As the conoidal apex matures into the more corrugated mass of sinuous small lobules, they emit an intolerable offensive odour of putrid flesh, inviting hordes of blue-bottles and other large flies which cover the whole mass with their eggs ; and the subsequent maggots which thickly beset it for next four or five days, render the flowerstalk as disgusting to the eye and nose as carrion. Flowers unisexual, the males on the middle third of the spadix immediately below the appendage ; the females on the lower

• That is, not actually falling off before the spadix is perfected, but withering long before that time.