Bai Fu Zi

Typhonium giganteum is a tuberous perennial herb of the family Araceae endemic to forest understorey and shaded slopes of central and northern China. From a depressed-globose to ovoid underground tuber 2-4 cm in diameter, white and starchy internally with a brown corky skin, it produces one or two long-petiolate basal leaves; the lamina is sagittate to broadly hastate, 15-30 cm long, deep green and glabrous, with the basal lobes spreading and acute. The inflorescence is a typical aroid spadix subtended by a long, narrow, purplish-green spathe 15-30 cm long that is constricted between the basal female zone and the upper male zone, with a slender, terminal, purple-brown appendix that emits a faintly fetid odour at anthesis. Fruiting is rarely seen in cultivation; the medicinal tuber is harvested in autumn and processed before use.