Secrets of Lords-and-Ladies

Just now the lane verges and hedge banks seem to be full of Wild Arums (or Lords-and-Ladies or Cuckoo-Pint) with their amazing hooded flower structures folded around a purple spadix. They have a truly remarkable pollination mechanism, part of which is shown in this cut-away plant. The spadix heats up and produces a powerful scent that attracts small flies. They land on the spadix, which is so smooth they can't keep a grip and fall down into the chamber below, passing two rings of hairs that only let a certain size of fly through...and then prevent their escape for a while.

At the bottom of the column the flies encounter the female part of the flower, with its cluster of ovaries topped by stigmas. The flies are trapped while the stigmas develop. If they have already visited another Arum they will transfer pollen to these stigmas. If not, they are allowed to work their way upwards past the first ring of hairs to the dark ring of male flowers with their short-stalked stamens. Only now will the stamens produce pollen for the flies to pick up and they are then released to fly to another Arum just waiting to trap them for a while. Clever eh!!

Only one Arum plant in a colony of hundreds was slightly damaged to get this shot!