How hot can an arum flower become?
Cooke’s historical account places flowering arums roughly 20°F to nearly 70°F above the surrounding air, depending on the plant and the observer. These are reported observations from the 1800s, not current measurements[1][2].
The most striking readings came from a thermometer placed in the centre of groups of spadices, the arum’s central flowering spikes. It read 131°F among five spikes and 142½°F among twelve, while the air was 74–75°F. Cooke reports these as rises of 56°F and 68°F[3]. Other comparisons were lower: one arum’s spike reached 31°F above the air, and observations of the common wild arum found 25–27°F above it[4][5].
His summary is not another reading: across the experiments he reviewed, Cooke put the largest rises at 50–68°F for larger arums, with smaller kinds showing less. He noted that the greatest warmth occurred at or shortly after the enclosing spathe opened, around the height of flowering[6].
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