Amorphophallus paeoniifolius

Amorphophallus paeoniifolius, the elephant foot yam or whitespot giant arum, is a tropical plant native to Island Southeast Asia. It is cultivated for its edible tubers in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Madagascar, New Guinea, and the Pacific islands. Because of its production potential and popularity as a vegetable in various cuisines, it can be raised as a cash crop. The elephant foot yam is used as food in Island Southeast Asia, Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia, New Guinea, Oceania, and Madagascar. Its origin and center of domestication was formerly considered to be India, where it is most widely utilized as a food resource. But a genetic study in 2017 has shown that Indian populations of elephant foot yams have lower genetic diversity than those in Island Southeast Asia, therefore it is now believed that elephant foot yams originated from Island Southeast Asia and spread westwards into Thailand and India, resulting in three independent domestication events. From Island Southeast Asia, they were also spread even further west into Madagascar, and eastwards to coastal New Guinea and Oceania by the Austronesian migrations, though they may have spread south into Australia without human intervention. The plant blooms annually around the beginning of the rainy season. The flower bud emerges from the corm as a purple shoot, and later blooms as a purple inflorescence. The pistillate (female) and staminate (male) flowers are on the same plant and are crowded in cylindrical masses as an inflorescence. The top part is responsible for secreting mucus that gives off a putrid, pungent smell that is used to attract pollinating insects, the middle part of the inflorescence contains staminate, and the base of the inflorescence contains pistillate. The stigmas of the female flowers will be receptive on the first day of the bloom, when the pungent smell draws pollinating insects inside, and the inflorescence closes, trapping them for a night to allow the pollen deposited on the insect to be transferred to the stigmas.