Italian arum
Arum italicum
Family · Araceae · Poisonous
Read this before the sheet
This plant, or one that resembles it, is dangerous. Identifying is not authorising: no app has the authority to tell you that you may eat or touch a plant.
Emergency
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The arrow-shaped leaf that appears in winter under hedges, and which in August leaves a spike of bright red berries stuck in the ground with no leaves around it. The berries are the main risk to children.
Oak woods · Streams and ditches · Walls and rocks · Roadsides and waste ground
Also known asItalian lords-and-ladies, cuckoo pint
How to tell it
A thick glossy arrowhead leaf, often with strongly marked pale veins. The flower is a greenish spike inside a sheath, and in summer only the spike of red berries remains.
What it is confused with
Common sorrel
Rumex acetosa
Both have arrow-shaped leaves. Sorrel's is thin, matt and lemony; arum's is thick, glossy and burns at once. Anyone gathering sorrel for salad must know this by heart.
What it is for
None
The whole plant carries calcium oxalate crystals that burn the mouth and throat instantly, which in practice prevents large ingestions, but one bite is enough for an emergency room visit.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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