Requires a wet lime-free humus-rich soil by the side of water or in shallow still or slowly flowing water in a sunny position. Plants are best grown in clumps.

Seed - cooked. A slightly sweetish flavor, resembling parched corn. A bread can be made from the dried and powdered seeds, it tastes like corncake with a strong flavor of cocoa. Spadix (the flowering stem) and berries - cooked. A great delicacy, but they must be very well cooked otherwise they are poisonous. The Indians would boil them for 9 hours. Root - must be well cooked in order to destroy an acrimonious principle, see the notes above on toxicity. The root is rich in starch and can weigh up to 2.7 kilos. It is highly astringent and has an unpleasant flavor. The root can be dried and ground into a powder for use when making bread, soups etc.

Seed - best sown as soon as it is ripe in late summer in pots of soil that are submerged to their rims in water. When they are large enough to handle, prick the seedlings out into individual pots and grow them on in trays of water in the greenhouse for their first winter. Plant them out into their permanent positions in late spring or early summer, after the last expected frosts. Division in spring. Larger divisions can be planted out direct into their permanent positions. We have found that it is better to pot up the smaller divisions and grow them on in light shade in a cold frame until they are well established before planting them out in late spring or early summer. Stem cuttings rooted in wet mud in the summer.

Swamps, borders of ponds and slow streams.