Sauromatum horsfieldii Miq.

Underground part a subglobose to depressed-globose tuber, producing annual offsets. Petiole variable in color, uniform, striped, or spotted, ranging from green to purple, 35-60 cm; leaf blade abaxially pale to gray-green, sometimes with scattered reddish purple spots, adaxially mid-to dark rich velvety green, with or without reddish main vein or splashed with golden spots along main vein, pedatisect, 7-13-lobed; lobes elliptic to lanceolate, margin flat or sinuous, entire or occasionally crenate, apex acute. Peduncle 4.5-20 cm. Spathe convolute at base, outside pale or mid-green or dull mid-to dark brown, with or without a few reddish or blackish brown spots or stripes, inside white or whitish green, base ovoid, occasionally with 1 or a few shallow keels, apex ± constricted; limb slightly arching, outside pale or mid-green, dirty greenish, or dirty pale brownish, with or without a few indistinct darker spots, inside whitish, pale green, with or without a few scattered blackish purple spots, ovate to oblong-ovate, cymbiform, 6-17 × 4-6 cm, often keeled at midrib, apex acuminate to caudate. Spadix shorter than spathe; female zone cylindric or slightly conic, 2.5-10 × 4-8 mm; ovary ovoid to oblong-ovoid, 1-loculed, 1-or 2-ovuled; stigma very small, in a depression of apex of ovary or ringlike surrounding depression; sterile zone narrowly fusiform-conic, 2-6 cm, 3-7 mm in diam. at base, entirely covered by staminodes; proximal staminodes with rhombic, flat base and aristate to clavate process, latter strongly bent upward, white, clavate part yellowish white or occasionally dark red; subbasal staminodes exclusively aristate, strongly pointing upward parallel to spadix axis, ± cream-colored; distal staminodes fused into vertical ridges with numerous irregular short processes, often arranged in ridges, white; male zone cylindric, 6-10 × 2-7 mm; male flowers white, distal ones often sterile and subclavate to spatulate or occasionally aristate; appendix subsessile or more distinctly stipitate, cream-colored or more rarely grayish brown with purple spots, cylindric or rarely fusiform, 1.5-4.5 cm × 2-6 mm, slightly tapering to obtuse apex, smooth or strongly corrugate, base attenuate to stipe; stipe sometimes ridged-verrucate. Fruiting zone with spathe base remaining; berries pale green when mature, obovoid to ellipsoid, corrugate and shallowly grooved.

It is a tropical plant. It grows in forests and grasslands between 100-3,100 m above sea level in south China. In Sichuan and Yunnan.

The corms are boiled and eaten. Caution: Many plants in this group contain oxalates that burn the throat and affect calcium absorption.