The arum’s self-heating spadix

Cooke described a crowded cluster of tiny arum flowers gathered at the base of a central stalk, or spadix. A surrounding sheath, the spathe, slows the escape of warmth, making the heat easier to notice than it is in scattered flowers^[1]. In Cooke’s period account, chemical changes accompanying flowering, which he described as oxidation and decomposition, produced that heat; he held that flowering plants generally gave off some warmth, but that densely packed, enclosed arum flowers made it especially apparent^[2][3].

The figures Cooke reported are striking: citing Hubert, he wrote that a thermometer among five spadices of Arum cordifolium read 131°F, and among twelve read 142½°F, while the air was 74–75°F^[4]. He also reported Goeppert’s finding that an Arum dracunculus spadix reached 31°F above the surrounding air^[5]. These are measurements Cooke relayed from earlier observers, not present-day readings.

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