Aroid: Amorphophallus haematospadix Hook. f.

While out kayaking a few days ago, these 'Aroid' flowers caught my eye.  

After all, how often would you see anything of that colour in this landscape?  

That plum-fuschia coloured spadix with the white spathe certainly stood out against the slaty gray of the limestone in the background.  

I asked my guests to give me a few minutes to take a few photos for species identification, then steered my kayak alongside the limestone wall.

These flowers were growing on a rocky ledge.  And with the tide at that time that day, this ledge was about 2 metres above the water level. To ensure I get good photos, I stood up on my kayak and my right hand that was holding the camera was all stretched out overhead.  Meantime, I had several fingers on my left hand pinching onto a tiny root to stay balanced and to keep my kayak from drifting away from the wall.  

And that was how I snapped these photos.

Thanks to Marek Argent of IAS for confirming this plant species to be Amorphophallus haematospadix Hook. f.  

The Amorphophallus is a large genus of subtropical tuberous herbaceous plants from the Arum family (Araceae).  Anyway, according to the IAS website, this species is found in East Malaysia, Peninsular Thailand and possibly in North Sumatra.  

And now we do know that it is also found in Langkawi, on North-West Peninsular Malaysia.

The larger inflorescence in the above photo is about 16-18cm from the base of the spathe to the top of the spadix appendage.  This is only an estimate based on a comparison to the palm of my hand.  And it looks like there's another tuber or stalk sticking out at the bottom right so another flower will be blooming soon!

 Pretty!