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Arum italicum
Also called Italian Arum, Italian Cuckoo Pint, Large Cuckoo Pint, Orange Candleflower
Italian lords and ladies is a perennial woodland plant from the Arum family, grown for its marbled leaves and red autumn fruit. It thrives in shade and moist, humus-rich soil, and it goes dormant in summer.
Arum italicum is a species of flowering herbaceous perennial plant in the family Araceae, also known as Italian arum and Italian lords-and-ladies. It is native to the British Isles and much of the Mediterranean region, the Caucasus, Canary Islands, Madeira and northern Africa. It is also naturalized in Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Argentina, North Island New Zealand and scattered locations in North America.
It is cultivated as an ornamental plant for traditional and woodland shade gardens. Subspecies italicum (the one normally grown in horticulture) has distinctive pale veins on the leaves, whilst subspecies neglectum (known as late cuckoo pint) has faint pale veins, and the leaves may have dark spots. Nonetheless, intermediates between these two subspecies also occur, and their distinctiveness has been questioned. Some gardeners use this arum to underplant with Hosta, as they produce foliage sequentially: when the Hosta withers away, the arum replaces it in early winter, maintaining ground-cover. Numerous cultivars have been developed for garden use, of which A. italicum subsp. italicum 'Marmoratum' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Leaves, fruits and rhizomes contain compounds that make them poisonous. Notably, the plants are rich in oxalates. The ingestion of the tuber may be fatal, as it affects the kidneys, digestive tract, and brain. Additionally, the sap of the plant can cause skin irritation, so it is recommended that gloves should be worn when removing it from an area.
Arum italicum nativity by subspecies is as follows:
Apulian Lords And Ladies · Arum · Cretan Arum · Mountain Arum · Snakeshead · Sintenis Arum · Arum Lilies
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Arum italicum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
