Jacks and Jills

© Dave Spier

Many people recognize Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema sp.) as a native spring woodland wildflower, but how many can tell which ones are Jill’s? It's actually simple, but we'll get to that later. The plant is in the Arum family and therefore related to Skunk-cabbage, plus Arrow Arum, Sweetflag and Green Dragon. Most of these species have their flowers inside a hood (called a spathe). In the case of Jack (or Jill) the club-shaped spadix resembles a preacher in his canopied pulpit. The actual flowers are tiny and hidden at the base of the spadix, inside the bottom of the hood. Male (staminate) and female (pistillate) flowers are on separate plants. Now, consider that it takes much more energy to be a female than a male. Pollen production is a short-term process that soon ends, but nourishing seeds takes the remainder of the summer until they ripen and turn bright scarlet red. Does this give you any clues? Female plants are larger and almost always have two leaves while male plants are smaller and have one leaf. But hold on, we're not done yet. The same plant can change back and forth depending on growing conditions!

Like many woodland wildflowers it takes a number of years for an individual plant to reach sexual maturity and begin flowering. Life is tough in the woods. Most of the growing season is spent in the shade of larger plants, primarily trees. It takes time, years of time, to store enough food (energy) underground to meet the added burden of producing flowers. Jack-in-the-pulpits start life as a single, small, compound leaf that grows larger each year until it has enough energy to add a male flower. If life is good, it eventually stores enough food to produce a female flower the following year. This usually takes three to five years. If conditions deteriorate -- there's not enough sunlight or not enough rain or it's too cold -- the plant can go back to being a male and start the process all over again.

Depending on which botanist you consult, there are either three species of Jack-in-the-pulpit or simply three varieties within one species, Arisaema triphyllum. I suspect that some of the confusion comes from the sexual variability within any given population. Aside from that there are variations in physical appearance. Some Jacks have green hoods, others have white-striped green hoods and a third variety has purple hoods usually with light stripes. The leaves are always three-parted and long-stalked. Some varieties can grow a foot high, while others reach three feet. This may be partly a result of soil fertility. The plants generally grow in moist woodlands, often at the edge of a swamp.

Jack-in-the-pulpit fruits ("berry" cluster) in late summer

This plant is also known as Indian turnip, but be warned that the underground corm contains crystals of calcium oxalate which cause an intense burning sensation in the mouth. There's a way around this but take pity on the hard life of the Jack and leave it to grow another year. If you really want to experiment with wild foods, use the plentiful Skunk-cabbage, but email me [linked below] for precautions and details. If you happen to stop at the Montezuma Audubon Center in Savannah, NY, and hike the Warbler Walk trail, you can take a look at both the Jack-in-the-pulpit and the Skunk-cabbage.

one of my first encounter with a Jack-in-the-pulpit in the late 60's or early 70's
(all of the spring shots are scanned from slides)

Corrections, comments and questions are always welcome at northeastnaturalist@yahoo.com or connect through my Facebook page and photo page. There's also a community-type page for The Northeast Naturalist. Other nature and geology topics can be found on the parallel blogs Adirondack Naturalist and Heading Out.

(This copyrighted article and the first photo appeared in the May 24, 2009 issue of the Times of Wayne County. All rights reserved.)

Skunk-cabbage

First Wildflower
© Dave Spier

At least one wildflower doesn't care what the weather is doing. It can produce its own heat from chemical reactions inside the plant, a process called thermogenesis. This ability may have evolved in early plants during the age of dinosaurs (the Mesozoic) as a way to entice insects to pollinate the primitive flowers. The heat helps the flowers to mature so they can launch odors attractive to insects and provide warmth if the insect spends the night. Later, it can keep the embryonic seeds from freezing during cold snaps.

If you know where to look, this wildflower has been visible since last fall when its pointed greenish-gray tips poked through the mud and leaf litter. It grows in wetlands mostly around the edge of swamps and along stream banks. In late winter the stalkless flower hood, called a spathe, swells and turns maroon or sometimes it's mottled with light green. It resembles cupped hands with an opening on one side and the pointed top may curl over. Inside is a light-yellow ball, called a spadix (or club) that looks like a small golf ball, but instead of dimples, the surface sprouts bumps that are the actual flowers. I'd recommend not looking too closely because the odor has been likened to carrion or dead meat. Then again, it's not for our benefit. It attracts carrion flies as well as bees and gnats which overwinter as adults. Instead of getting nectar, which more highly evolved flowers produce, the insects receive warmth at a time when it's in short supply.

The flowers appear before the leaves because the long root stored enough food the previous summer. The tightly coiled leaves, bright spring-green in color, rise next to the flower hoods and open into a rosette of broad, egg-shaped paddles. Their job is to nourish the seeds and produce an excess of food that can be stored underground for the following spring. Again, I'd recommend not getting too close because the crushed leaves smell like skunk. By now you've guessed that we're discussing Skunk Cabbage, a widespread plant of the bottomlands. It's also been called Polecat-weed, Bear's-foot, Fetid Hellebore, and Midas-ears. Native Americans called it Skunkroot, but were able to eat it by boiling in three changes of water. Early Swedes called it "bjornblad," Anglicized to Byron-Blad, meaning "bear's leaf," a reference to bears eating it in the spring. Makes you wonder about the bear's sense of smell...

Skunk Cabbage is a member of the Arum family, so it's a relative of Jack-in-the-pulpit and Calla Lily. By the time these latter species appear, the spring migration will be well underway and we'll be enjoying warm weather. Or will we? Stay tuned and have faith; spring will arrive. It's inevitable, like the amount of daylight increasing. If you ignore twilight, the length of day and night are both 12 hours around March 20, the date marked on the calendar as the beginning of astronomical spring. It's enough to trigger the return of blackbirds and other hardy migrants that spent the winter a few states to the south, even if they do run into an occasional late snowfall in Upstate New York.

Part of the spathe removed to show the actual flower inside...

 

There is a range map for this northeastern species at:

http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=SYFO
...and a related west-coast species called American Skunkcabbage:

http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=LYAM3

Send your comments, questions, or suggestions to Dave Spier, northeastnaturalist@yahoo.com or request hyperlinks to my photo websites. There's a link to my Facebook page at the bottom of the right sidebar.

(This copyrighted blog is based on an article that first appeared in the Times of Wayne County, March 24, 2008. All photos © Dave Spier. All rights reserved. A similar version appeared in a

Montezuma Audubon Center newsletter.)