This small Jack-in-the-pulpit is just opening up so its hood isn’t covering ‘Jack’ that well yet. Maybe it will unfurl more before tomorrow’s rain.
Emerging Jack-in-the-Pulpit
Picture of the Day for May 25, 2022
The odd shape flower has the right equipment on this rainy day with a built-in umbrella so that Jack in the Jack-in-the-Pulpit keeps his head dry.
A Dry Jack
Picture of the Day for April 23, 2021
Today I spotted the first Jack-in-the-pulpit today even though it was harder to spot without its leaves open. It seemed rather pale looking without the sunshine and it definitely needed its hood to keep the rain off Jack inside the pulpit.
Wet Pulpit
Picture of the Day for May 6, 2020
The lack of bright colors sometimes allow the green Jack-in-the-pulpit to go unnoticed in the woods, but it is an interesting flower to see. I spotted a few of the them open today but poor Jack might need a blanket with the frosty nights this week.
Jack-in-the-Pulpit
Picture of the Day for May 26, 2019
The name of this wildflower, Jack-in-the-pulpit, comes from looking like a preacher in a pulpit, although in this case, the preacher probably isn’t Jack as the plant is female. The double set of compound leaves indicates that the plant is female although the plants can change gender from year to year.
The male plants tend to be smaller and also allow pollinators, like the fungus gnat, to escape more easily due to a small hole at the bottom of the slippery spathe after coming into contact with pollen. Females flowers, without the hole, are more likely to trap the pollinators that may be carrying the male pollen, giving it a better chance of successful pollination.
No Jack in the Pulpit
Picture of the Day for May 22, 2018
With the grass growing and the trees as well as other plants leafing out, this green color wildflower is easily overlooked. Maybe it will blend in better so the deer won’t spot them and eat the Jack-in-the-Pulpit like they have with many of my other flowers.
Camouflaged Flower
Picture of the Day for May 18, 2016
Green flowers often get overlooked since they don’t stand out like the other colors. But at least “Jack” had a hood over his head to protect from the patchy frost overnight. New seedlings need three or more years of growth before they become large enough to flower. The Jack-in-the-pulpit flowers are unisexual and normally the larger plants are female.
Jack Hiding Under the Hood
Picture of the Day for September 17, 2015
The floor of my woods has splotches of bright red from the berries of the Jack-in-the-Pulpit. But in this case it is more like Jill-in-the-Pulpit, as only the female plants produce the berries, but the plant can switch back and forth from male to female depending on the previous year’s environment and how much nutrients were stored in the corm. So last year much have been a good year since a lot of female plants this year, but they may see many “sex changes” in their lifespan as some plants can live for a hundred years. But be careful touching the berries as they can cause irritation to sensitive or broken skin when touched.
Jack’s (or Jill’s) Seeds
Picture of the Day for May 12, 2015
With the mention of snowflakes in the air, other wildflowers besides the Jack-in-the-pulpit might want a hood to keep the snow off their heads. The name comes from the fascinating structure of its flower resembling a old-fashioned raised pulpit with a like a tiny man inside.
Jack Hiding Inside
Picture of the Day for June 6, 2014
Some wildflowers were not able to put on a show this year, especially my trilliums which the deer devoured on me, but the Jack-in-the-Pulpit are out in full force this year and the deer must not like the taste of them and a good reason for it since the leaves are poisonous. But the flower is a weird looking plant and what we think is the flower is really deep inside and at the bottom of the ‘pulpit’, as the pulpit is the spathe and the ‘minister’ is a spadix. The true flowers are located at the very base of the spadix.
The Jack-in-the-Pulpits are also unusual since each plant has a particular sex instead of having both parts on the plant. The male has little anthers at the base of the ‘Jack’ and females have a cluster of green berries, which turn red in the fall.
Even though separate male and female flowers, pollination does occur with a bit of trickery as the ‘pulpit’ produces the smell of mushroom to attract tiny insects. And since the hood blocks the sunlight and the lower part of the pulpit is paler and lets more light in so the insects move down to the light and picks up or drops off pollen.
The flower will also change sex from year to year as the female takes more resources to produce the baby plants, so if the plant’s corm was able to store a lot of food, then it will be a female plant the next spring and shoot up two leaves. Otherwise with less nutrients, the plant will be a male (as he doesn’t have as much work to do producing pollen), and send up only one leaf. In really bad years or young plants, there will be no ‘pulpit’ and just a single leaf instead.
The Odd Jack-in-the-Pulpit
