How Lords & Ladies Put Flies to Work
And Arum maculatum’s amorous colloquial names
One of my favourite plants to talk about on the Wild Walks I host with Wild South London is lords and ladies (Arum maculatum). Last week I noticed they are in flower where I live… and they are just ASKING to be drawn in my nature journal. I think lords and ladies flowers look almost prehistoric, or like they belong in a fantasy land.
Now, before I go any further I should warn you not to pick any lords and ladies if you do want to draw them. All parts of the plant contain oxalate crystals which irritate the skin and, if consumed, can cause your throat to swell up . This alone is a good reason to familiarise yourself with this plant, as it grows in a lot of the same environments as wild garlic, which a lot of us are picking at this time of year. Once you know how to ID lords and ladies, you’ll see the leaves really doesn’t look very like wild garlic leaves at all, but you’ll also see how easy it could be to accidentally pick some. As we always say on Wild South London walks, lords and ladies leaves are DEFINITELY not one to use as wild toilet paper, should you get caught short in the woods. Mistaking them for a dock leaf to soothe a stinging nettle rash could also have disastrous consequences!
Anyway, the thing I really want to talk about today is lords and ladies’ extra terrestrial looking flowers. These hooded flowers have an unusual looking spike in the centre, known as a spadix, which actually heats up in the late afternoon, until it is about 20º hotter than everything surrounding it. This spadix also releases a foul, faecal smell. Delightful eh?
Flies, looking for decaying matter to lay their eggs in, think this stinky spadix is IRRESISTIBLE and land inside the ‘hood’ part of the flower, which is called a spathe. The spathe is super slippery, so the poor stink-seeking flies fall down into a chamber at the base of the flower containing the female parts, which need pollinating, and the male parts that produce pollen. The flies are trapped within the flower overnight, imprisoned by sticky, downward facing hairs. They become glued to the sticky female parts while the male parts shower them with pollen. Once this has occurred, the lords and ladies’ prison bars wilt and the flies are freed… until they get trapped in a whole new lords and ladies flower, where they will deposit the pollen that just landed on them. Clever eh?
Arum maculatum and their clever trick were actually featured on the first episode of BBC’s Wild Isles, which is well worth a watch (skip to 20:38 to find the lords and ladies).
Now, I know Arum maculatum as ‘lords and ladies’ but it’s very possible you know it as something completely different, as this plant has many, many common names (some sources I found say there are over 100). Devils and angels, Adam and Eve, snake’s head, cuckoo pint, Kitty-come-down-the-lane-jump-up-and-kiss me, priest in the pulpit, red hot poker, toad’s meat, willy lily, dog’s dibble… I could go on. The genitalia associations are palpable and, to be fair, I can see why. I guess the Victorians were a literal lot, as despite the fact this plant is incredibly toxic, apparently they used Arum maculatum as an aphrodisiac, and in Devon it was said that a girl could get pregnant simply from looking at this plant… pfffft!
Sources and Further Reading
Hatfield's Herbal: The Curious Stories of Britain's Wild Plants (Google Books)
Ramblings & Scribblings: A selection of anecdotes concerning the English Cuckoo Pint
Totally Wild: Lords & Ladies ID
Join me at Books in the Park this weekend
If you’re stuck for something to do in London this weekend, come along to Books in the Park, a new festival set in one of my favourite places - Beckenham Place Park. I’ll be running a Wild Walk with Wild South London (now sold out, sorry!) and chatting to Ben Jacob about his book The Orchid Outlaw. Tickets available here.
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Love it! Such interesting plants, and those names 😂
Thanks for this in-depth piece on an extraordinary plant. I’ve noticed we have two growing in our wild patch, as you say next to the nettles and garlic.