Our Victorian ancestors viewed the only English Aroid with such suspicion that they referred to it as that "crafty and malignant antediluvian vegetable". Growing in shady habitats along the hedgerow, Lords and ladies, or Cuckoopint, has inspired more common English names than any other plant, many with rather bawdy associations. The poker-shaped flower head (the spadix) is usually purple, though sometimes yellow, and is partially enclosed in a hood-like yellowish-green spathe - a modified leaf that is often edged and spotted with purple. The actual male and female flowers are hidden below a ring of hairs at the base of the spadix. The flower appears at the same time as the cuckoo, growing amidst shiny, arrow-shaped leaves that often have dark spots. The flower is constructed to lure and trap small flies, such as owl midges, that are attracted by the raised temperature and bad smell of the spadix.
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