Inside the Large Cuckoo-pint Flower

I wanted to have a look inside the base of the cuckoo-pint hood but I'd only found a small patch in the wild, which I was reluctant to disturb. Instead, looked at a similar plant in my garden the large cuckoo-pint or Arum italicum. This plant has creamy-white veined green leaves and a yellow spadix rather than the usual purple brown of Arum maculatum.

Inside the base of the hood or spathe there is first a hair trap, then underneath that the male flowers, each a single stamen and at the very bottom the female flowers, each a single carpel. Midges, particularly the owl midge, are attracted to the plant by scent from the spadix. They get caught in the hair trap, and if carrying pollen, they then pollinate the flowers in the base of the hood. As the hair trap shrivels the midges escape from the spathe carrying pollen with them to cross-pollinate another plant. Later poisonous berries develop from the female flowers, ripening from green to red.