plant id anyone please?

[giletrouge]

Asking for my neighbour who has this growing and wishes to get rid of it. I'm very familiar with it, but I'm damned if I can actually think what it is. Very grateful if anyone knows. She thinks it produces red berries at some point - sorry vague.

Arum maculatum - Cuckoo pint/Lords and ladies which is poisonous so I can understand the wish to get rid of it. Not very easy, they spread readily, digging out as much as possible, and hoe off any new growth, maybe?

Thank you Nan. I was nearly right - the word 'alum' floated up in my brain from somewhere, but that just proved to be a mineral, not a plant. Nice to know I wasn't completely on the wrong track and I'll pass the info on to them.

which is poisonous so I can understand the wish to get rid of it. But so much is poisonous! A poison-free garden would lose an awful lot. No daffodils or honeysuckle for a start.

Totally agree with you Mere, but where there might be children around, those red berries could be awfully tempting!

Yeah, I completely understand Nan but always worry because you can control what's in your garden but not what's elsewhere. And if you know your garden is totally safe there isn't quite the imperative to drum in the "never eat anything without showing it to Mummy" message, and then your child is vulnerable elsewhere. But I don't think I'm advocating"stuff your garden with poisonous plants to teach your children not to eat anything they don't know to be safe" I don't know what the right balance is.

I can't remember (of course) what was in our garden when I was tiny, but the house we moved into when I was 3 certainly had wild arum, and my tree house was in a mature cherry laurel with an abundance of berries. When I was in bed with measles or some such and awaiting a GP visit, my mother removed the vase of woody nightshade berries from my bedside table "in case the doctor gets the wrong idea".