Plants low, acaulescent or nearly so, arising from tuberous rhizomes, with usually only one leaf and one inflorescence arising at the same time from a single tuber; petioles elongate, the blades chiefly sagittate and peltate, the primary nerves few and spreading, the veins densely reticulate; peduncles elongate, solitary; tube of the spathe convolute, persistent, constricted in the throat, the blade cymbi-form, white; spadix slightly shorter than the spathe, the lowest part naked and stipitiform, the pistillate inflorescence cylindric-conoid or ellipsoid, densely many-flowered, the sterile staminate portion of the spadix subconic, longer than the pistillate, the fertile staminate portion contiguous with the sterile, subclavate, densely flowered, twice as long as the pistillate part; flowers unisexual, naked; staminate flowers with 3-5 stamens, these connate to form a truncate-obpyramidal synandrium sinuously 6-angulate at the apex, the connective thick, plane at the apex, the anther cells oblong-lanceolate, rounded and emarginate at the base, opening by a short apical slit; ovary 2-or 3-celled, the ovules several in each cell, anatropous, biseriate; style none, the stigma depressed-hemispheric, obscurely 3-or 4-sulcate; fruit baccate, whitish, crowned by the remnants of the stigma, 2-or 3-celled, many-seeded; seeds ovoid, on very short funicles.
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