Wake-robin

I promised my blip-friend I would try to post this when it became red. It has happened quickly, and  sooner than I expected. Though it will get redder, I took my chance before the blackbirds steal the berries, which they adore. The fruit of Arum maculatum - 'cuckoo pint', 'lords-and-ladies' and any one of 150 other common names, as documented on a web site I found

I was taught as a child that it is cuckoo pint, but not taught to pronounce it to rhyme with 'mint', rather than a pint of ale, so got that wrong for many years. I certainly was not taught that 'pint' is an abbreviation of 'pintle' - a country word for penis, of which the flower is suggestive. The more decorous-sounding 'londs-and-ladies' is also no such thing, being a sly country reference to what such people get up to behind closed bedroom doors. Many of its other common names are equally suggestive

I realised I know very little about it's biology, so did a bit of digging. I find the sex-life of the plant itself - which results in these berries - to be more jaw-dropping than any of its suggestive names. It is the sort of story you might expect from an Attenborough documentary from a rain-forest, rather than our country garden

In the evening, the flower generates a smell like rotting meat (full disclosure: I've never noticed this - research for next year!). Incredibly, they also generate heat, making the flower spike warmer than the surrounding air. The smell and warmth attracts small flies, which are trapped by bristles in the smooth-walled chambers of the flower, and the flower provides them with nectar; if the flies are carrying pollen, they fertilise the flowers. At night, male flowers on a higher part of the plant sprinkle pollen on the flies - by this time, the female flowers in which the flies are held have become unreceptive to pollen, so self-pollination is avoided. The following morning, the bristles wilt, the nectar dries up, and the flies can escape. That evening the cycle is repeated, and the flies passed on their pollen to the next flower. I don't imagine the Lords and Ladies can contrive anything so imaginative

Another name for it, that I find charming, is 'wake-robin'. Information about the origin or meaning of this is sparse, but the best guess I came across is that its flowering co-incides with the reappearance ('awakening') of robins in the spring - or, more accurately I think, the reddening of their breasts in the mating season - which makes them more obvious

Finally, I read that the pollen that is so liberally sprinkled on the flies, and coats the flower-spike in the process, is slightly florescent, giving it a faint glow in the evening (something else to observe next year), which has fuelled tales of faerie-folk and enchantment

All this under our apple tree