Alocasia amazonica

Any plant with the specific name amazonica always has an air of the exotic about it, but the truth is that this attractive houseplant has no links with the Amazon or South America. Strangely, it's sometimes known as elephant's ears or African mask plant - and it has no links with Africa, either. It's a hybrid between two species from the other side of the planet, A. sanderiana from the Philippines and A. lowii from Borneo. I've no idea why it acquired the epithet amazonica. It makes a very striking houseplant , although once it blooms it tends to lose some of its symmetry. I always think that cowled inflorescence and ribbed, shield-shaped leaf give it an air of menace; it has a hint of voodoo or witchcraft about it, which I guess is where the name African mask plant originated.

Arisaema triphyllum, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Araceae

Arisaema species are relatives of our native British wild arum or cuckoo pint (Arum maculatum), but are somewhat more elegant, with their curved, candy-striped spathe. They thrive in semi-shaded woodland conditions but I've often found that it's very easy to forget where you planted them and accidentally dig them up, so in recent years I've taken to planting them in pots, where their corms slowly increase by producing offsets. This species comes from North America, so should be very hardy - and I'm hoping that it will have survived the current unusually cold winter. 

If you take a look here you can see some of the other species that are in cultivation - and also see why they are considered to be highly collectable plants. Unlike many aroids they don't have a strong smell - just a rather elegant floral architecture.

Voodoo Lily Dracunculus vulgaris

Once smelled, never forgotten: the voodoo lily Dracunculus vulgaris has one of the most eye-wateringly awful aromas of any plant. It grows wild on stony hillsides in Greece and Crete, where the stench of its flowers - reminiscent of a decaying sheep carcass, drifts long distances and attracts fly pollinators. It belongs to a group of plants that are known as sapromyophilous flowers, which means that their flowers emit the scent of decay and attract flies. It sprouts from a corm and I've grown it twice. On the first occasion I left it on the living room windowsill for a couple of days while we went away for the weekend and it took us two weeks to get the pong out of the curtains and carpets. On the second occasion, a couple of years ago, I grew the specimen in the photo and planted it outside in the garden just as it was about to open its rather spooky inflorescence. I suspect that the neighbours much have wondered whether something had gone catastrophically amiss with their drains. It's one of those botanical curiosities that you just have to grow once - or if you are a real masochist twice - but that'll do. If you wanted to be really mean and had a tendency towards botanical practical jokes you could send an unlabelled corm to an acquiantance with instructions to grow it indoors. They'll love you for it. There's also another plant marketed under the name voodoo lily, Sauromatum venosum, which has a similar stench but has purple spots on the hood-like spathe and a much longer tongue-like spadix.

Skunk Cabbage Lysichiton americanus

As spring approaches, what plants spring to mind? Snowdrops? Primroses? Daffodils? If you lived in the Pacific Northwest of America your list might also include the imposing skunk cabbage Lysichiton americanus. 

Another skunk cabbage species, Symplocarpus foetidus, is a  thermogenic plant, emitting enough heat from that central club-shaped spadix to melt surrounding snow , although L.americanus isn't thermogenic.  If you take a look at http://5e.plantphys.net/article.php?ch=&id=503 you can see a thermal image of another aroid, Philodendron flower, a relative of skunk cabbage, showing how the central spadix generates heat. 

L. americanus has a slightly unpleasant smell that attracts beetle pollinators in its native habitat. This certainly works here in England too, half a world away from home - the skunk cabbage in my bog garden attracts pollinators , although here its flies rather than beetles that are attracted to its aroma. 

The flower buds on the plant in my garden are just beginning to elongate and will be fully open in two or three weeks. After they wither they're replaced by very large waxy green leaves which were once used as the botanical equivalent of waxed wrapping paper. The climate in the UK suits this plant well and I know of one local woodland close to the River Wear where a colony has been thriving in a swampy hollow between the trees for almost two decades - almost certainly a garden throw-out that has been swept down river and established itself in the wild.