Arum italicum

Pamela Harlow pamela@polson.com
Wed, 23 Apr 2014 18:55:02 PDT
Arum italicum can be spread by birds, which swallow the fruit whole and
excrete the intact seeds.  A migrating robin might drop seed far from the
feeding site.

Pamela Harlow
Seattle


On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 9:39 AM, Jane McGary <janemcgary@earthlink.net>wrote:

> Kathleen wrote,
>
>> Working on a wetland mitigation site last week, I found three patches and
>> two seedlings of Arum italicum. My question to the PBS members in temperate
>> climates is this:  How invasive is this species? It's listed as invasive in
>> the state of Oregon, which is 25 miles to the south, and it's in a natural
>> area that is supposed to be left alone. I suspect it needs to come out,
>> though that may be difficult, given the likelihood of deeply rooted corms.
>>
>
> If there's that much arum in a wetland, it does need to come out. It will
> have to be dug -- the tubers can survive herbicide application. It probably
> arrived via garden debris being dumped, or on the treads of logging
> equipment. Common garden Kniphofia has been found in Mt. Hood National
> Forest (Oregon)  far from cultivated land and probably arrived that way.
> Arums have large seeds that don't travel far.
>
> The state of Oregon is somewhat erratic in what it designates as invasive.
> Arum italicum spreads rapidly in some gardens here, but not in others. It
> seems to prefer moist, retentive soils such as the silty soils deposited by
> rivers; some in my former garden on gritty subalpine soil barely survived.
> Oregon has even declared Cyclamen coum invasive, and the only motive I can
> imagine for that is that some official visited Boyd Kline's famous garden
> in Medford and saw the decades-old drift of that species (C. hederifolium
> is much more widely adapted, but I don't think it's on their list).
>
> A. italicum is present in my new garden but I haven't started quelling it
> yet as I don't need its spot for anything else (the Spanish bluebells
> [Hyacinthoides campanulata] are a different matter!). I also have Arum
> italicum var. albospathum, which one visitor this spring took for a
> Zantedeschia because of its showy white spathes. I haven't planted it out
> yet but will do so when it's dormant this summer, along with some other
> Arum species that are taking up too much room in my bulb collection. I'm
> not worried about these plants invading in the suburban neighborhood where
> I now live, and they will make good ground cover in difficult sites near
> conifers (mine or the neighbors').
>
> Jane McGary
> Portland, Oregon, USA
>
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