28 MY DEVON YEAR 



Beneath my wood, upon its confines and about the 

 ripe old crumbling banks that hem the forest in and 

 make a lodge for coneys, there leap aloft countless 

 tiny spires of green. Here is the home of Arum 

 maculatum, or lords and ladies, or adder's meat, or 

 cuckoo-pint, or parson-in-the-pulpit, or wake-robin 

 the commonest, strangest of our wayside weeds, and 

 sole member of the great Arum family whose foot 

 is on his native hedge in the British Islands. Rich 

 and shining, he sparkles through mats of fallen foliage, 

 or spreading on the red earth of the land, brightens 

 it by contrast with the surrounding sere. His blunt, 

 arrowy leaves show full sweep and strength of lush 

 life. There is almost a coarseness in his intense 

 vitality and vigour. For the most part he is ivy- 

 green, with the glow of health in every sappy stem 

 and sprawling leaf. Rarely, however, shall be found 

 a wild arum of gentler mould and less redolent 

 of the soil. Such a specimen will be seen more 

 tender in his colour, with greater delicacy of foliage, 

 and the veins of him will show a darker tone than 

 the planes of the leaf which may be almost golden. 

 Again, the speckled variety that gives to the plant 

 its distinguishing name, while at least as comely and 

 as strong as the commoner, unblotched arum, makes 

 a contrast with his strange, many-shaped sprinkling 

 of rich black dots and streaks and splashes. 



Soon sharp spears of paler green will be pushing 

 above the rich leaves of the lords and ladies, and these 

 breaking, each hooded spathe will gracefully uncurl 



