Important: Safety Warning
This page recommends pest-control substances such as arsenic compounds, strychnine, or cyanide — in some cases applied to food crops. These substances are lethal to humans and animals, and their use is now banned or strictly controlled.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Pinellia
(a commemorative name, given to this genus by Tenore). SYNS. Atherurus, Hemicarpurus. ORD. Aroideae (Araceae). A genus comprising three or four species of hardy, tuberous herbs, natives of North China and Japan. Flowers all fertile; spathe marcescent, the tube convolute, the blade oblong and concave; spadix naked at base, the appendix worm-like, elongated, exserted; peduncle solitary. Leaves tri-or pedati-sect, membranous; segments oblong-lanceolate or elliptic, acute; petioles elongated, sometimes bearing gum at apex. The species described below thrives in any sandy, well-drained border. It is readily propagated by division during winter, or at any time before growth has too far advanced.
P. tuberifera (tube-bearing). fl., spathe with a narrow-cylindrical tube and an oblong lamina; spadix with a filiform appendage, twice as long as the lamina of the spathe. l., adults trisected; segments oblong-elliptic, acute at both ends, the middle one nearly or quite twice the size of the lateral ones; petioles bearing tubercles. Japan, &c.