This is a very rare species in cultivation, and likely a one time offering. These unusual plants grow from a thick, slowly growing tuber, often branching, which creeps horizontally just below the soil surface. Horizontal tuber can measure up to 30" long by 10" across, the plant produces one huge, much-divided leaf with a stout prickly stem. The compound leaves are up to 30 inches tall and are supported on slender spotted stems with very rose-like thorns. The fascinating leaves are an enlogated bi-lobed bat shape, often with fenestrations (window holes). These are now mature, over 20 years old seedlings of a most unusual aroid, distantly related to Amorphophallus. These seeds were planted in 2000, originated from an ethnobotanist in the jungles of Benin, along the west coast of Africa. The indigenous people there use the species for a variety of medicinal properties.