Spiderwort and the Lewd Arum

I stopped in at my favorite plant nursery on Wednesday to  pick up some eggplant starts and was seduced by this gorgeous chartreuse-leaved spiderwort.  Sure, spiderwort grows wild around here but it doesn't look like this.

Spiderwort's 'real' name is Tradescantia, in honor of the Tradescants (father and son), English naturalists who introduced the plant to England back in the early 1600s.

Their friend John Smith (yes, the Pocahontas one) brought them many plant specimens and tradescantia virginiana was probably one of them.

And here below is the lewd arum -- aka Arum Dracunculus. I've posted about it before -- it has a way of calling attention to itself. It looks like Thus Spake Zarathrutra should be playing but it can't manage that. Instead it emits a VERY strong odor of rotting carrion to attract the flies that will aid in pollination.