April Calendar 2016: Lords and Ladies

April: Lords and Ladies

Elegant Shiny Green

Arum maculatum
Order: Alismatales
Family: Araceae
Genus: Arum

habitat: shady places
distribution: throughout British Isles
except the northern Scotland

This March was chilly after the mild but wet quite stormy winter.  April has started with the cloudy chilly day, but hopefully the warm spring will catch up soon.  Buds and sprouts have been awaiting the bright warm days.  Birds are busy with making new nests, couples of butterflies are flying in the air, bumble bees have appeared from their winter shelters to collect nectar from early spring flowers.

Lords and Ladies (other names: arum maculatum, cuckoo-pint or Jack-in-the-Pulpit) appears quite early.  The glossy soft bright green young leaves come from the ground even in January in sheltered from the harsh weather, beneath bushes, at the foot of hedges, in woods etc.  The leaves look like spinach, though, the strong acidic taste causes irritating mouth and stomach upset; so, better not eaten. (Poison Garden Website, RHS: Arum Maculatum)

You can find much more delicious edible wild plants in the spring such as wild garlic, nettle, violet etc.

Like lesser celandine, lords and ladies is very sturdy, rather invasive.  Our garden in the shade is getting occupied more and more by them now among the early dog violet (which is also very sturdy).

The mature leaves are arrow-shaped. Two leaves are spread outward and the pale yellow-green spathe (the colour of the spathe in my print is green because of the printing method) comes out in between, in which a club-shaped brown purple spadix is loosely wrapped.  The shape of this plant is distinctive among the other wild plants.  The poem of the flower fairies (by Cicely Mary Barker) explains what it's like.  While many spring flowers have colourful bright colours, yellow, pink, white etc., lords and ladies isn't much more colourful, but the appearance is gorgeous.

Here is again a poem of Cicely Mary Barker's Flower Fairies of the Spring (Cicely Mary Barker, The Complete Book of the Flower-Fairies, Warne, 2002).

The Song of THE LORDS AND LADIES FAIRY

Here's the song of Lords-and-Ladies

(in the damp and shade he grows):

I have neither bells nor petals,

like the foxglove or the rose,

Through the length and breadth of England,

many flowers you may see---

Petals, bells, and cups in plenty---

but there's no one else like me.

In the hot-house dwells my kinsman,

Arum-lily, white and fine;

I am not so tall and stately,

but the quaintest hood is mine;

And my glossy leaves are handsome;

I've a spike to make you stare;

And my berries are a glory in September.

(BUT BEWARE!)