Home
Annual or perennial, dioecious. Leaves basal, commonly 35–40 cm long, c. 7 mm wide, with up to 20 secondary veins. Spathes long-pedunculate, either with long-pedicellate male flowers or with 1, rarely 2, sessile female flowers. Male flowers with outer perianth segments 5–10 mm long, white; inner segments 5–10 mm long; stamens 9, the basal whorl with subsessile anthers c. 3 mm long and distal whorl with filaments c. 4 mm long and anthers c. 2 mm long. Female flowers with outer perianth segments 5–10 mm long, green; inner perianth segments c. 24 mm long, white; staminodes or stamens sometimes present. Fruit narrowly cylindric, 23–54 mm long, c. 5 mm diam. Seeds obloid-ellipsoid, c. 1.4 mm long, with up to 12 longitudinal ridges, which are distinctly tuberculate to almost smooth, the tubercles truncate.
Stems shortened or absent. Leaves all in basal rosette, linear, 6-60 cm × 5-7 mm, veins faint, 20 or more, spiny toward apex. Spathes 6-10 cm, with a long peduncle 20-120 cm. Plants dioecious; flowers unisexual, 1 female or 5-10 male flowers in a spathe. Sepals reddish, linear, 9-10 × ca. 1.5 mm. Petals 2-2.5 cm or longer. Stamens 9; filaments 2-5 mm; anthers 1-2 mm. Ovary narrowly cylindric, 6-9 cm, with a beak 8-10 cm; styles ca. 2 cm, hairy. Fruit 7.5-10 cm. Seeds numerous, oblong-elliptic, 1-2 × 0.5-1 mm, with up to 12 longitudinal ridges bearing 8 rows of ± blunt spines ca. 0.5 mm, without filiform projections. 2n = 16, 32.
