It blooms between the months of March and April, by which time the plant is easily recognized by its dark purplish-black spadix enclosed by a reddish-brown spathe.

[5][12] In traditional medicine among Palestinians, A. palaestinum extracts have been used for cancer, intestinal worms, infections in open wounds, urinary tract obstructions, and kidney stones, and are thought to strengthen bones.

[16] In a recent revision of his book, Killing Cancer – Not People, author Robert G. Wright discusses one dietary supplement company's use of the species in one of its products.

[17] Engraved drawings of various species of Arum are seen in the Temple of Thutmose III in Karnak (Egypt), depicting the plants when they were brought from Canaan in the year 1447 BCE.

[18] The 11th-century Mishnaic exegete Nathan ben Abraham describes the cultivation of the plant in the Levant: 'If arum is covered up with earth in the Seventh Year' (Sheviit 5:2).

Therefore, they would bury great quantities [of this plant] together and cover them up with dry earth, and the members of one's household would transfer its leaves to [a place] beneath a roof, so that they will not sprout in the Seventh Year.