Asterogyne martiana H.Wendl. ex Drude

Shrub to 2 or 2.5 m. tall, erect, with thin costate foliage: leaf-blades simple and deeply bilobed or irregularly split-pinnate, 50-60 cm. long, 15-20 cm. broad, glabrous on upper face, somewhat brown-scurfy on rachis and ribs underneath, with many prominent nerves 5-6 mm. apart and 2 or 3 thinner ones between; pinnae (when the blade is divided) perhaps reduced to shreds as narrow as 1 cm., apices long-acuminate; petiole. about 50 cm. long, very slender, furrowed or concave on under surface, ridged on upper surface, glabrous or perhaps temporarily scurfy: spadix a terminal almost umbelliform cluster of 4-6 finger-like straight or curved colored rachillae 10-12 cm. long and each bearing a nude spike at the end-1-1.5 cm. long; peduncle about 40 cm. long, erect, covered to one-half or more its length with 2 striate spathe-sheaths and very small bracts higher up; axis of rachilla 4-5 mm. thick at anthesis, closely pubescent, the flowers promi-nently projecting from the narrow alveoles; lower lip of alveole entire or only lightly emarginate, not reflexing; floral parts conspicuous at anthesis, the filament tube evident and the discrete anther-cells pendent in an inverted V-form from the top of the filament.

An abundant understorey plant in lowland rainforest, generally at elevations up to 500 metres, but ascending to 1,100 metres in Colombia.

Can be grown by seedlings.