Lords and Ladies

Lords and ladies, also called cuckoo pint, is a woodland plant of the arum family, Araceae, native across most of Europe and into eastern Turkey and the Caucasus. In spring it puts up arrow-shaped leaves, often blotched with purple, then a pale green hood, the spathe, wrapped round a poker-shaped spike, the spadix, which is usually purple but may be yellow. The spadix gives off a faecal smell and warms itself well above the surrounding air, drawing in small owl-midges that are trapped beneath a ring of hairs and dusted with pollen before they escape. In autumn a cluster of bright red berries stands on after the leaves have withered. The starchy roots once stiffened linen and ruffs, and the nuns of Syon Abbey used them for church linen in 1440. Several of its names, cuckoo pint among them, liken the spike to a penis, and Dioscorides counted the plant an aphrodisiac. Girls in Dorset were warned that touching it would make them pregnant, Fenland legend had its flowers glowing at night, and it serves as a fertility symbol in several of the sixteenth-century unicorn tapestries. In magical practice it stands for the union of goddess and god on a Beltane altar, and its seeds are added to fertility spells.