Pungapong

Description:

Pungapung is a perennial, stemless herb. The corm is depressed-globose, up to 30 centimeters in diameter, flowering before leafing every year from the previous year’s corm. The stem like structure, which bears the lamina, is merely the petiole (1 meter or more high), radically developed from the corm. The leaves are usually solitary, with the blades up to 1 meter in diameter, trisected, the segments dichotomous, the ultimate ones pinnately divided into oblong to oblong-obovate, acuminate lobes. The spathe is sessile, broadly campanulate, dull-purplish, margins somewhat spreading or recurved, waved and crenulate, up to 30 centimeters in diameter. The spadix is hardly longer than the spathe, the appendage ovoid, variously sulcate or depressed up to 15 centimeters long, foetid when in flower. The petioles of young, unexpanded leaves are edible, when thoroughly cooked. When food is scarce, the corm is sometimes eaten. The leaves and corms are common feed for hogs.

Habitat:

Pungapung is commonly found in most, or all, provinces of Luzon and in Mindoro, in thickets and secondary forests, along roads, trails, etc., at low and medium altitudes in the settled areas. It also occurs in India through Malaya to Polynesia.

Notes:

found this on our backyard... sorry i can't rotate the pic..