WILD ARUM STORY

Cuckoo Pint, Jack in the Pulpit, Parson in the Pulpit, Parson's Pintle, Lords and Ladies, Wake Robin and Wild Arum are all names for this plant with the curious hooded flower. 

  

I picked this one so I could show the fascinating inside workings of the flower.

You can see that there is a bulge at the base and a constriction above it, and there is a reason for this.

  

Small insects, especially the owl midge, are attracted to the smell and heat exuded by the purple 'poker' or spadix.  Looking for a tasty snack, they then crawl down past the downward-pointing hairs which trap them inside the bulge. While buzzing around in this prison they pick up pollen from the male parts (brown in the photo) and also transfer pollen from previous arums they have visited on to the lower female parts.  Once the plant is pollinated the hairs shrivel and the plant releases its captives, who fly off to another wild arum and make the same mistake again.

  

In July those female parts develop into the bright red berries that skulk amongst other plants low down on the woodland floor.

The berries are toxic but the burning taste is so awful that there have been very few instances of poisoning.