Description: Deciduous herbs; stem subterranean, cormous or condensed-rhizomatous.
Leaves with lamina [linear-lanceolate to] hastate [to pedate] with reticulate venation.
Inflorescence solitary, rarely clustered, mostly purplish, usually foul-smelling. Spathe convolute in the ovoid lower part separated from the limb by a constriction, the limb falling after anthesis. Spadix with basal female flowers, then a sterile zone of filiform [or spathulate or truncate] organs, then a male zone sometimes separated from the filiform organs by a naked zone, finally a conspicuous sterile appendix. Tepals absent.
Fruit a 1-seeded berry; infructescence protected [or not] by the persistent spathe base.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 40 species, Indomalesia to eastern Asia, Australia. Australia: 13 species (10 species endemic, 1 sp naturalized), Qld, N.S.W., N.T., W.A.
Text by A. Hay
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Filiform sterile organs separated from male zone by a naked portion of spadix axis; appendix conical, abruptly truncate at base | Typhonium brownii |
| Sterile organs arising throughout interval between female and male zones; appendix slender throughout, tapering, not truncate at base | Typhonium eliosurum |
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