Wild Arum ( Arum maculatum )

I am not sure if I should count this as one of my "walk to the bins" blips.  I did notice them on the way back from the bins but they are just over the fence in next door's garden.

The plant has many "common names" , we have always known it as Cuckoo Pint.  I have seen getting on for a couple of dozen alternative "common names, which is probably why I always try to add the scientific name, as "common names aren't necessarily common.

To illustrate the common name problem.  When I was a teenager a friend and I were fishing and two folk we knew stopped to chat.  They were out "rough shooting".  Soon after the "beck watcher" (water bailiff) turned up doing a licence check.  In conversation, he asked about the two we had been talking to.  We said they were shooting Cushats".  His reply "shooting what?"  We had grown up knowing Wood Pigeons as Cushats.

Back to Wild Arum.  You have probably seen them in spring a spathe (upright leaf) with a purple spike in the centre.  More commonly found it woods these were growing under a tree.