Unknown bobbly plant
Nikki Jayne
Posts: 2
in Plants
Hello, I'm posting here on behalf of my mother who is the gardener in our family. She wants to know what these strange bobbly plants are. They've been coming up in our garden for years - at the moment they are green but she said they do turn red in about August - they look like berries. Any ideas?
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Arum italicum pictum also known as lords and ladies
Fabulous, thank you!
I think they are quite attractive and let them grow in certain wilder areas of my garden but they do spread like mad, particularly if you let the berries go soft and fall off or if the berries get into the compost heap - then hundreds will come up!
Fidget, is it the same as 'cuckoo pint'?
More correctly they look like the other British native one which is Arum maculatum, rather than the A. italicum.
They have the most number of names of any native plant, mostly based on the Phallic appearenace of the flowers centre.
Cuckoo Pint, Lords and Ladies, Angles and Saxons, Wake Robin, Wake Pintle, Dog's Tausle, Parson in the Pulpit...........I could go on, but why?
And they are poisonous