Rhopalocnemis Jungh.

Plants dioecious or monoecious (inflorescences bisexual or unisexual) with a large basal tuber at the point of contact with the host root; tuber starchy, irregularly corrugated; stems breaking through the outer tissue of the tuber, which in turn forms a conspicuous irregularly lobed sheath around the base of the stem, leafless or with spirally arranged slightly curved warty scales. Inflorescences spadix-like, ellipsoid or cylindrical, unisexual or bisexual, when young covered by flattened, marginally cohering tips of hexagonal peltate bract-like scales which are caducous in flakes at anthesis; the central area of scale often developing a wart or a slightly recurved structure much resembling the scales on lower part of stem; flowers mixed with numerous hairs. Male flowers: with tubular perianth adnate to ovary, entire or shortly and irregularly splitting or apparently irregularly 4-lobed; stamens 3, forming a column and a synandrium of anthers united into a columnar head containing many thecae in 2 or 3 layers. Female flowers: with perianth adnate to the ovary and forming 2 low lips at the top of the ovary, one anterior and another posterior, alternating with 2 slender caducous styles; ovary 2-lobed, slightly compressed in anterior-posterior direction; styles 2, slender; stigma capitate.

Eastern Himalayas, Indo China and Malaysia. Monotypic

List of Lower Taxa