Arum italicum
Poisonous plant
Environmental Weed (2024)
Common names
Italian arum
Biostatus
Exotic
Category
Vascular
Structural class
Herbs - Monocots
Flower colours
Yellow
Detailed description
Tuberous, clump-forming perennial 25-60 cm tall. Main tuber 4 cm diameter, many small tubers attached. Leaves up to 30 cm long, arrow shaped (young leaves thinner), glossy, dark-green with creamy midrib and main veins, purple-tinged, present from Autumn to Spring. Flower a yellow spike, surrounded by a 30 x 15 cm, pale green translucent bract. Berries 1 cm, orange or red, on flower stalk after leaves die back.
Similar taxa
May be confused with Zantedeschia aethiopica, or other lilly species (Calla, Dracunculus) but the dark green leaves with creamy mid-rib and veins are very distinctive.
Habitat
Heavily disturbed shrubland and forest, herbfield, damp areas with low cover, regenerating ex-pasture.
Conservation status
Not applicable
Detailed taxonomy
Family
Ecology
Flowering
October, November
Fruiting
November, December
Year naturalised
1945
Origin
Eurasia
Reason for introduction
Ornamental
Tolerances
Drought resistant once established.
Life cycle and dispersal
Perennial. Spreads via seed and slow vegetative spread. Probably bird dispersed.
Other information
Poisonous plant
All parts of the plant are poisonous including the bright orange berries.
Etymology
arum: From the Greek word aron which means ‘climbing’ or ‘poisonous plant’.
Environmental Weed (2024)
This plant is named in a list of 386 environmental weeds in New Zealand 2024 prepared by DOC. 759 candidate species were considered for inclusion on this new comprehensive list of environmental weeds in New Zealand. The species considered were drawn from published lists of weed species, lists of plants that must be reported or managed by law if observed, existing national and regional programmes and agreements for pest management, and species already managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC). Candidate species were then assessed to see if they were fully naturalised and whether they have more than minor impacts in natural ecosystems. Read the full report here.
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
ARUITA