Cryptocoryne crispatula Engl.

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

Vernacular

xuan bao yin bang hua

General Description

Rhizome sometimes with a metallic blue-gray color, 0.5–1cm in diam., irregularly thickened. Root system sometimes with many finely branched upright roots. Leaves green to brown, very variable, narrowly linear to lanceolate, 10–70 × 0.2–4cm, smooth to undulate to bullate, margin entire to finely, irregularly denticulate; broader leaf blades mostly with conspicuous lateral veins. Generally, two ecological leaf forms occur:

1. plants that grow submerged for most of year, thus developing long flaccid-lax submerged leaves (sometimes also developing shorter, stiffer emergent leaves);
2. plants that develop short terete leaves during rainy season and, when water level decreases, form normal emergent leaves at anthesis.

Spathe outside greenish to brownish, 10–40(–60)cm; kettle 1–2.5cm, inside somewhat constricted below male flowers, inside ± reddish (especially distally) and with alveolae (depressions in wall) in distal part; flap closing kettle sometimes ± purple spotted; tube slightly to somewhat twisted, 5–30(–45)cm; limb ± spirally twisted, yellowish to grayish, with short to long, purple to reddish markings, sometimes markings almost completely covering surface, or few and faint, or absent, (1.5–)3–8(–12)cm; collar not present. Spadix: female flowers 4–6, with horizontal to vertical, round to ovoid stigmas; olfactory bodies ± irregularly lobed with protruding cells; male flowers 90–130, thecae rough from protruding cells. Fruit splitting in a septicidal/septifragal-ceratium-like way, greenish to purplish, narrowly globose, 1–1.5cm, smooth. Seeds brownish, 5–8mm, rugose; endosperm present; embryo cone-shaped with an undifferentiated plumule.

Habitat

Rivers, streams.

Phenology

Fl. Dec.-Apr.