Arum is a genus of flowering plants in the family Araceae, native to Europe, northern Africa, and western and central Asia, with the highest species diversity in the Mediterranean region.

The flowers are produced in a spadix, surrounded by a 10–40 cm long, distinctively coloured spathe, which may be white, yellow, brown, or purple.

The flowers are borne on a poker-shaped inflorescence called a spadix, which is partially enclosed in a spathe or leaf-like hood of varying colour.

As the time required for successful pollination to occur can be several days, many of the small insects nevertheless die within the flower due to their short lifespan.

No digestive enzymes or similar components are present; and in fact, once pollinated, the entire inflorescence starts withering except the central part, from which the berries later emerge.

The "cryptic" species have the inflorescence on a relatively short stalk, and the odour released during the thermogenesis is recognizable to the human nose as distinctively faecal.