''Tacca maculata'' is a plant in the

Dioscoreaceae Dioscoreaceae () is a family of monocotyledonous flowering plants, with about 715 known species in nine genera. The best-known member of the family is the yam (some species of ''Dioscorea''). The APG system (1998) and APG II system (2003) both ...

family, native to

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

, the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...

and

Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa and known until 1997 as Western Samoa, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania, in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu), two smaller, inhabited ...

It was first described by

Berthold Carl Seemann Berthold Carl Seemann (25 February 1825, in Kingdom of Hanover – 10 October 1871, in Nicaragua) was a German botanist. He travelled widely and collected and described plants from the Pacific and South America. In 1844 he travelled to the Unit ...

in 1866.

Description

''Tacca maculata'' has few leaves on petioles up to 1.9 m long, and (usually greater than 1 m long). The leaf lamina start trisected but then become irregularly dissected. The scape of the inflorescence is up to 2 m long. There are three or four involucral bracts and they are lanceolate to ovate. There are 20 to 40 flowers on pedicels which are up to 5 cm long. The sepals and petals are similar, and green on the outside, maroon on the inside. The style is about 2 mm long and has three glandular patches at the base. The fruit is rounded and topped with a persistent perianth.

Habitat

''T. maculata'' usually grows in well-drained lateritic soils.

References

External links

''Tacca maculata'' occurrence data
from the

Australasian Virtual Herbarium The ''Australasian Virtual Herbarium'' (AVH) is an online resource that allows access to plant specimen data held by various Australian and New Zealand herbaria. It is part of the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), and was formed by the amalgama ...

{{taxonbar, from=Q9353987 Tacca maculata Flora of Western Australia Flora of the Northern Territory Flora of Fiji Flora of Samoa Taxa named by Berthold Carl Seemann Plants described in 1866