Arums are unusual plants, with flowers consisting of a hood, called a spathe, with the sexual parts, the spadix, inside. The spathe has interesting colours, usually muted greens, browns, creams, often with vertical stripes. The flowers are followed by dense spikes of red fruit in the autumn.

Arum creticum 'Karpathos' has attractive, scented, pale yellow spathes in spring. This particular form was selected at Kew.