Arum notes
Jane McGary (Sat, 19 Jul 2008 10:14:14 PDT)

Angelo Porcelli wrote,

one collected in Sicily is >Arum italicum, no doubt. The other species
present in Italy are : Arum apulum, endemic of

described as A. lucanum ) >scattered in the Southern Italy at altitude,
Arum pictum endemic of Sardinia and Arum >maculatum, in the Northern and
Central Italy

I thought A. maculatum was a synonym of A. italicum subsp. maculatum? Is
that wrong?

It's interesting that Arum pictum is endemic to Sardinia. I bought the
plant some years ago from an English nursery and read that it was tender,
so I kept it in the bulb frame. Last fall I planted out some extra offsets,
admittedly in one of the warmer parts of the garden, and they made it
through a harder than average winter with no damage to the winter-growing
foliage (low of 17 F, repeated snowfalls and thaws).

I planted out a number of different Arum species on a steepish slope last
fall and hope most of them will prove hardy and eventually clothe the slope
in winter and spring with their foliage. Several have flowered in the bulb
frame, including A. dioscoridis, which is beautiful but smells just like
cow manure (not that bad, as aroids go).

Several years ago I organized a special issue of the Rock Garden Quarterly
devoted to aroids (a few copies are available for purchase through the Book
Service), and Peter Boyce was kind enough to contribute an article on the
genus Biarum. I've managed to grow a number of these mostly smaller aroids
(some can get quite big, as I found out when I finally saw them in nature),
which are fairly easy from seed. Some of them don't produce many offsets,
though, so I don't often have enough to distribute.

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon, USA