Asterogyne guianensis (Asterogyne guianensis)

Description

Stem solitary, erect, 1.5-2 m tall, 3.4-5 cm in diam, with very short internodes, at base with a loose cone to 1 m high of thin, branched, yellowish-brown, adventitious roots, these bearing white, conical, minute pneumatodes. Leaves 2 to 5 -18, older ones arching, younger ones more or less erect; sheath and petiole to 6 cm long, 1 cm in diam. at mid-point, shallowly channeled adaxially, rounded abaxially, green, covered with deciduous brown scales, glabrescent; rachis 8-9 cm long, with similar scales to those of petiole; blade entire, membranous, oblanceolate, cuneate at base, deeply bifid at apex, 10-1 1 cm long, 3.5-4 dm wide at apex of rachis, green adaxially, lighter green abaxially; primary veins about 25 per side, emerging at 30" angle from the rachis, prominent abaxially. Inflorescence spicate, to 8.5 cm long, erect and interfoliar at anthesis, becoming pendulous as fruits develop; peduncle 5-5.5 cm long, about 0.5 cm wide, dorsiventrally compressed, densely brown-tomentose; prophyll membranous, tubular, about 2 cm long, inserted at base of peduncle; peduncular bract tubular, green, 4-4.2 cm long, inserted near base of peduncle; rachis not dorsiventrally compressed, pale green at anthesis and becoming reddish-brown in fruit, 2.6-3 cm long, 1.5 cm in diam., very densely whitish- and brownish-tomentose; flower pits spirally arranged in 7 series, each pit about 5 mm apart, covered with a reflexed, rounded lower lip; triads surrounded by 3 bracteoles; staminate flowers 10 mm long, white at anthesis; sepals 3, free, imbricate, 7 mm long, glumaceous, keeled, 1 much wider than the other 2; petals 3, connate below, free and valvate above, 8 mm long, glumaceous; stamens 25 or 26; filaments united below into a tube, free above; anthers 1.5 mm long, inflexed in bud, thecae separate and terminal on the arms of the bifid connective; pistillode prominent, to 2 mm long, trifid; pistillate flowers about 5 mm long in bud; sepals 3, free, imbricate, 4 mm long, glumaceous, keeled, 1 much wider than the other 2; petals 3, connate below, free and valvate above, about 4 mm long; staminodes united below into a tube, free above with ca 2 1 dentiform lobes; ovary 3-locular; style terminal, about 3 mm long; fruit narrowly ellipsoid, strongly keeled apically, 25 X 15 mm; epicarp garnet red and shiny at maturity; mesocarp fleshy and juicy; seed narrowly ellipsoid, 20 x 8 mm, with homogenous endosperm, germinating in 140 days; eophyll entire with bifid apex.