I was very lucky to be given a chance by my explorer friend to take photographs of the spathe of C. zaidiana. He managed to collect a specimen with attached spathe and met me for coffee at a coffee shop when he came back to conduct the autopsy of the spathe together to take photographs.
The limb of the spathe was very interesting, the base colour of the limb was creamy white in colour with warty surface. The limb seemed to be either lightly burnt or coated on the surface such that only the top portion of the "warts" was dark purple in colour.
The top of the limb recurred to the back.
We were fooled by the kettle shape which were constricted in the middle. Thinking that the kettle was somewhat similar to C. pallidinervia such that the kettle was very small (i.e. only within the small round top portion), we cut the spathe into two half instead, breaking the lower section with the female flower portion off.
The lower section of the inner wall of the kettle was slightly red in colour. The valve at the entrance of the kettle seemed slightly yellowish in colour.
The styles were long and thin with dark purple tip.
The top of the spadix (i.e. the appendix) was dark purple in colour too.
The olfactory bodies were also dark purple in colour too.
Hope you enjoyed the photographs of the spathe of this rare cryptocoryne.
2 comments:
Fascinating - a real contribution.
The descriptions were largely based on the observations stated in "the crypt pages".
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