Arisaema siangense - Siang Cobra Lily

Siang Cobra Lily is a perennial herb up to 1.85 m tall and 80 cm wide. Underground stem is an annulate tuber, nearly spherical or elongated, about 6-12 cm across and 5-14 cm long. Pseudostem is the size of or longer than the leaf-stalk, 30-60 cm long and 3-4 cm wide at base, olive-green or pale red-brown with transverse vermillion markings and/or carmine stripes. Cataphylls (small leaves) are usually 3, 5-50 cm long, similar in color to the pseudostem. Leaf is single, carried on leaf-stalk 50-60 cm long and 1.5-2 cm across at base, smooth, olive-green with carmine stripes. Blade is digitate, leaflets up to 11 in number, elliptic obovate, shiny green with deeply impressed veins above, 25-40 cm long and 7-9 cm wide; margins wavy, green, entire or sawtoothed; tip long tapering; base narrowed or decurrent, nearly stalkless or with a green leaflet-stalk, up to 10 mm long. Flower structure emerges when the leaf unfolds and carried beneath the foliage. Flower-cluster-stalk is shorter than the leaf-stalk, 5-20 cm long and 6 mm across at base, red-brown, with a mottling similar to the pseudostem. Spathe tube nearly cylindrical, 6-10 cm long; outside dark pink with faint paler stripes becoming olive-green near the spathe mouth; inside white-yellow with dotted purple stripes mainly in the lower half. Spathe limb is horizontal, ovate-lanceshaped, shorter than the tube, 4-8 cm long (not counting the tip) and 3-5 cm wide, outside and inside dull orange-yellow with pale pink stripes. Spathe tip tapering, prolonged into a tail, 8-15 cm long, olive-green turning pink at the end. Spadix appendix usually hardly exsert ed from the spathe tube, erect, subcylindrical, 4-7 cm long, exceptionally extremely short, ending in a club-shaped, knobbly and light carmine tip. Fruiting spike is conical, 7-14 cm long and 3-6 cm wide, borne on an upright flower-cluster-stalk. Receptacle cream-coloured. Berries densely packed, 10-12 mm long and 6-7 mm across, bright red, rounded, upper part flat, each berry containing up to 3 seeds. Siang Cobra Lily is native to the Siang region of Arunachal Pradesh. Flowering: May-June.