Arum

Not to be confused with Ara (genus) or Aurum.
For other uses, see Arum (disambiguation).

Arum
Arum palaestinum
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Monocots
Order: Alismatales
Family: Araceae
Subfamily: Aroideae
Tribe: Areae
Genus: Arum
L.
Range of the genus Arum
Synonyms[1]
  • Aron Adans.
  • Gymnomesium Schott

Arum is a genus of flowering plants in the family Araceae, native to Europe, northern Africa, and western and central Asia, with the highest species diversity in the Mediterranean region.[1][2] Frequently called arum lilies, they are not closely related to the true lilies Lilium. Plants in closely related Zantedeschia are also called "arum lilies".

A type of Arum plant in a park in Paris

They are rhizomatous, herbaceous perennial plants growing to 20–60 cm tall, with sagittate (arrowhead-shaped) leaves 10–55 cm long. The flowers are produced in a spadix, surrounded by a 10–40 cm long, distinctively coloured spathe, which may be white, yellow, brown, or purple. Some species are scented, others not. The fruit is a cluster of bright orange or red berries.

All parts of the plants, including the berries, are poisonous,[3] containing calcium oxalate as raphides. In spite of this, the plant has a history of culinary use among Arab peasants in Palestine who practised leaching the toxins from the plant before the leaves were consumed.[4][5][6]

The genus name is the Latinized form of the Greek name for these plants, aron.

  1. ^ a b Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families
  2. ^ Govaerts, R. & Frodin, D.G. (2002). World Checklist and Bibliography of Araceae (and Acoraceae): 1-560. The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
  3. ^ Nelson, L. et al. (2007) Handbook of Poisonous and Injurious Plants. New York Botanical Garden.
  4. ^ Ḳrispil, Nissim (1985). A Bag of Plants (The Useful Plants of Israel) (in Hebrew). Vol. 3 (Ṭ.-M.). Jerusalem: Cana Publishing House Ltd. ISBN 965-264-011-5. OCLC 959573975., s.v. Arum palaestinum (לוף‎)
  5. ^ Dalman, Gustaf (2020). Nadia Abdulhadi-Sukhtian (ed.). Work and Customs in Palestine, volume II. Vol. 2 (Agriculture). Translated by Robert Schick. Ramallah: Dar Al Nasher. p. 329. ISBN 978-9950-385-84-9.
  6. ^ Mayer-Chissick, Uri; Lev, Efraim (2016). "Wild Edible Plants in Israel Tradition Versus Cultivation". In Yaniv, Zohara; Dudai, Nati (eds.). Medicinal and Aromatic Plants of the Middle-East. New York: Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 18–20. ISBN 9789402406603. OCLC 1062304427.