Biarum auraniticum Mouterde

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/13133535/18611050

Conservation

EN - endangered

CATE Araceae, 17 Dec 2011. araceae.e-monocot.org

Habitat

Open hillslopes and fields in stiff clay-like volcanic soils.

Distribution

SW Syria, known only from the type locality.

Diagnostic

Biarum auraniticum is unique in possessing a white spathe limb. There is no doubt that this is a most singular species, not only from the inflorescence coloration but also because of the remarkably wide bottle-shaped ovaries. The odd inflorescence coloration and unusual appearance of the ovaries make it difficult to envisage a close relationship. The lack of pistillodes, the ovate-elliptic, long-petiolate leaves and slightly inflated spathe tube support a link to B. bovei or B. kotschyi.

General Description

Tuber slightly dorso-ventrally compressed discoid, 2–3 × 1.5–2 cm, mid-brown. Leaves 2–3, hysteranthous, short to rather long-petiolate, bases encased by 2–3, 6–12 cm × 7.5–20 mm, lanceolate, papery, cataphylls, these pale straw-yellow on drying; petiole 7–12 cm × 2–10 mm, adaxial surface slightly channeled distally, outer petioles expanded proximally into a broad membranaceous wing, inner ± the same width for their whole length, midgreen, paler below; leaf lamina elliptic, 4–8 cm long, 2–4.5 cm wide, apex rounded to sub-acute, base decurrent, 6–8 primary lateral veins per side, margins smooth, lamina mid- green. Inflorescence emerging in winter, peduncle 2-5 cm × 3-4 mm, off-white, intensely foul smelling of horse dung; spathe 8.5–17 cm long; spathe limb lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, 9–13 × 1–3 cm, apex acute to rather acuminate, exterior greenish white, interior paler; spathe tube narrowly cylindric, wider at the mouth, slightly inflated in the mid-region, 2–3 cm × 8–13 mm, margins connate for c. 1/3 their length, exterior pale green, interior pale green distally, deep purple proximally. Spadix sub-equal to shorter than the spathe limb, 7.5–14 cm long; spadix appendix slender fusiform to fusiform, 5.5–10.2 cm × 2–7 mm, sub-sessile to briefly stipitate, yellow. Staminate flowers in a zone 18–22 × 3–3.25 mm wide, cream. Interstice 8–11 × c. 1.5 mm in wide, cream. Staminodes absent. Pistillate flowers in a hemispherical cluster 3–5 × 6–8 mm; ovaries globose, 1.5 × 1.5 mm, cream, style c. 1 × 1.25 mm, purple, stigma c. 0.5 mm in diam., purple. Infructescence known only from immature material, consisting of c. 35 globose berries in a globose cluster; berries sub-globose, 2–3 × 1.5–3 mm, dull purple. Seed (immature) spherical, c. 2 mm in diam., testa reticulate, mid-brown. Chromosome number not recorded.