I noticed the first Jack-in-the-Pulpit blooming this spring, but with all the new plants sprouting up, the plant might have been a Jill-in-the-Pulpit last year instead as plant has both male or female parts and they change gender from year to year depending the success of the previous year.

Little Jack-in-the-Pulpits

A cluster of Jack-in-the-pulpits catch some early evening spring sunshine. They are a native wildflower and the actual true flower are tiny dots that line the spadix (the Jack) which are wrapped by the spathe (the pulpit). The smaller plants are generally male and as the plant ages and grows larger, more female flowers are produced.

Some Jacks in Sunshine

Jack-in the-pulpits are an odd looking wildflower and what appears to be the flower, the pulpit, is not the flower. The flowers are actually hidden inside the ‘flower’. The Jack-in the-pulpits are also unusual in that each plant has a particular sex instead of having both female and male parts. If you looked inside the pulpit, you would see either yellowish brown anthers if a male or a cluster of tiny green berries if a female.

What is also strange about this wildflower, is that the plant will change sex from year to year. Since the female has the harder job of making the seeds and getting the seeds ready for the birds to disperse them, if the year was not a good one for storing food to the corm, the plant in the fall will make a bud for a male flower and one leaf. If it had been a good year and the corm is packed with nutrients, the plant produces a bud for female flowers and, usually, for two leaves, to make more sugars by photosynthesis.

So like the many of the birds, the female Jack-in the-pulpits has most of the work and since she does the work, I don’t think it should be called ‘Jack’ in the pulpit but guys do get most of the credit!

Weird Wildflower