A common wild plant in the British Isles, Arum maculatum is a monocotyledon of the family Araceae.
The flower, 22-46 cm (9-18 inches) high, appears in April with a green and purple sheath enclosing a fleshy stem bearing separatemale and female flowers. The colours and the smell of the flowers which resembles decomposing manure attract many small flies which are trapped in the spathe (sheath) by downward pointing hairs. When the flowers are pollinated, the spathe withers and the trapped flies are released, well dusted with pollen with which to pollinate other flowers.
The attractive orange-red berries appear in July and August. They are poisonous - fatally so to children.
The strange form of the flowers has given raise to many local names for the plant such as Adam-and-Eve, Cuckoo-Pint, Lords-and-Ladies and Parson-in-the-Pulpit.
A white starch, a form of arrowroot, is recorded as having been made from the roots of Arum maculatum in Elizabethan times and is recorded as having been made on the Isle of Portland in Dorset into the mid-19th century.
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Richardia aethiopica, a relative of A. maculatum, is the 'Calla Lily' of horticulture with white spathes which appear in the spring. A variant is the Yellow Calla.
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Arum maculatum grew very profusely on all the fallow fields on top of the Isle in Portland in Dorset (because of the poor and thin soils on Portland, fallow fields were numerous as crops were raised only in alternate years), and such a field was known locally as a 'starch moor'.
The roots of the Cuckoo Pint were gathered by the women of Portland and the farinaceous matter extracted from them to produce arrowroot. Much of the Portland-produced arrowroot was sold in Weymouth.
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The plant was formerly cultivated in the Isle of Portland, and the starch obtained from its roots, under the name of Portland sago, used as a substitute for arrowroot.
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- The Daily Express Encyclopaedia, 1934
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On the subject of this arrowroot production by the wives of stone masons on the Isle of Portland, The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge of February 24th, 1838, contains the following;
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Much of it [arrowroot] is sold in Weymouth, and the produce brought home in clothing. The Society of Arts, by judicious gifts, formerly gave great encouragement to this manufacture in Portland.
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CAN YOU HELP? ...
1. "Much of it is sold in Weymouth, and the produce brought home in clothing" - this seems very ambigious; was clothing bought with the proceeds of the arrowroot sales and brought back to Portland? If not, what was the produce brought back? Can you help?
2. Do you have any information on the "Societyof Arts" mentioned?
If you can help with either, please mail us by clicking here.
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