Stylochaeton zenkeri Engl.

First published in Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 26: 424 (1899)
This species is accepted
The native range of this species is W. & W. Central Tropical Africa. It is a perennial or rhizomatous geophyte and grows primarily in the wet tropical biome.

Descriptions

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

Distribution
Sierra Leone (Hepper, FWTA ed. 2, 3 (1):114, 1968), Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Congo .
General Description
Plant erect on horizontal rhizome, 4-10 mm in diam., in fresh material, upright at the extremity; numerous adventitious roots; very long, over 15 cm. LEAVES petiolate, numerous, 7.5-28.5 cm long, deep violet, sheathed for less than half their length; sheath very broad, purple to pale green, confused with bracts; blade 7.5-20 x 4-11 cm, oblong or elliptic, rarely ovate, apex obtuse to subacute, base hastate, cordate or subtruncate; posterior lobes not longer than 2 cm, broadly obtuse or rounded; 3-6 pairs of primary veins ascending to the apex and connecting between them the thinner secondary veins, often almost invisible when dry, oblique, parallel. INFLORESCENCES axillary; peduncles violet-red, very short compared to the petioles, 2-5.5 cm long; spathe longer than the peduncle, 3.5-7.5 cm long, cream, white to greenish white, furrowed vertically, tubuliform, globose at base, lanceolate and acuminate, forming a cone in the upper part; spadix included, reaching to less than half the length of the spathe; male flowers pink to pale brown, numerous, 3-6 staminate, at their base a very short white perianth, in a flat form, from which emerges a rudimentary pistil; female flowers in only 1 ring of 2-5 ovaries, pale yellow to whitish pink; style thick, green; stigma discoid, equally green; perianth cupuliform and white; ovary trilocular with numerous anatropous per locule. INFRUCTESCENCE: Berries white with green markings or pink to purplish black, subglobose, ca. 5 mm diam.
Habitat
In Cameroon, this species occurs in all areas of humid forest, frequently in the understorey.
Diagnostic
Leaves oblong, subacute, slightly obtuse at the base; spathe about 3 in. long Allied to S. lancifolius , Kotschy, according to Engler, who does not state if the leaves appear with or after the flowers; but as specimens of S. gabonicus, N. E. Br., have been distributed from Berlin under the name of S. Zenkeri (with the description of which they do not agree), it is assumed in the key to the species that S. Zenkeri somewhat resembles S. gabonicus, and like that species has axillary peduncles. I have not seen it.
[CATE]

Extinction risk predictions for the world's flowering plants to support their conservation (2024). Bachman, S.P., Brown, M.J.M., Leão, T.C.C., Lughadha, E.N., Walker, B.E. https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nph.19592

Conservation
Predicted extinction risk: not threatened. Confidence: confident
[AERP]

Sources

  • Angiosperm Extinction Risk Predictions v1

    • Angiosperm Threat Predictions
    • http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
  • CATE Araceae

    • Haigh, A., Clark, B., Reynolds, L., Mayo, S.J., Croat, T.B., Lay, L., Boyce, P.C., Mora, M., Bogner, J., Sellaro, M., Wong, S.Y., Kostelac, C., Grayum, M.H., Keating, R.C., Ruckert, G., Naylor, M.F. and Hay, A., CATE Araceae, 17 Dec 2011.
    • http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0
  • Herbarium Catalogue Specimens

    • 'The Herbarium Catalogue, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Published on the Internet http://www.kew.org/herbcat [accessed on Day Month Year]'. Please enter the date on which you consulted the system.
    • Digital Image © Board of Trustees, RBG Kew http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
  • Kew Backbone Distributions

    • The International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Vascular Plants 2025. Published on the Internet at http://www.ipni.org and https://powo.science.kew.org/
    • © Copyright 2023 World Checklist of Vascular Plants. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
  • Kew Names and Taxonomic Backbone

    • The International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Vascular Plants 2025. Published on the Internet at http://www.ipni.org and https://powo.science.kew.org/
    • © Copyright 2023 International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Vascular Plants. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
  • Kew Science Photographs

    • Copyright applied to individual images