Lords-and-Ladies - Arum maculatum

Short plant with a horizontal tuber; often patch forming, leaves appearing in the Spring, blunt arrow shaped, and shiny bright green, often with small black blotches. Spathes flushed, spotted and streaked with purple, rarely entirely yellowish-white. Fruiting spike relatively small, 3 to 4 cm, berries bright orange-red.

Woodland, hedgerows, ditches and shady places.

April and May.

Perennial. Insects attracted by smell to visit the spathe and are trapped by downward pointing hairs enabling pollination. At night the spathe loosens, allowing them to escape.

Common throughout much of Britain rarer in Scotland.

Common in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 391 of the 617 tetrads.