Tiny flowers

 

Jack in the Pulpit AKA Arisaema triphylum

As a young child my mother would take my friends and I on a hike through the woods to a swimming spot.  Along the way, we would always be on the lookout for Jack in the pulpit and lady slippers, each of us kids wanting to be the first to spot one. Jack in the pulpit is a plant appropriately named with its appearance of a preacher standing and delivering a sermon from a pulpit.  This native plant grows in damp loamy woodland settings.  It is an interesting plant with some unusual capabilities.  When considering this plant, what you likely visualize is the purple and brown striped hood, or spathe visible in the spring.  The hooded spathe shields "Jack" who is the spadix.  What you may never have noticed is a number of tiny flowers that form inside the spathe at the base of Jack. Though the tiny flowers are well hidden, they have a carrion like scent, drawing pollinators like flies who enter the tube-like spathe looking to lay their eggs on decaying flesh for the hatchlings to consume. The flies land on "jack" and then bumble around on the floor of the "pulpit" gathering pollen from the flowers on their bodies.  The male plants offer a simple escape route, a small opening in the bottom of the pulpit.  Once the flies find their way out, they enter another "pulpit" where their gathered pollen fertilizes any flowers inside.  The flies can sometimes become trapped inside the pulpits of female plants as there is no escape route at the floor of their spadix.  These plants don't benefit in any way nutritionally from trapped insects as they aren't carnivorous. After being fertilized, the flowers inside the spathe die back and the spathe and spadix disappear, the plant more or less blends unobtrusively into the woodland landscape bearing just its remaining three leafed foliage. Late in summer and early autumn this plant once again stands out, as the female plants produce stalks holding clusters of bright red berries.  Each of those berries contains up to five seeds.  

This important native plant provides food for black bear who when foraging in the spring pull up and consume the corm type of root at the base of the plants.  Later in the year, the berries are consumed by a variety of birds such a wild turkey and ring-necked pheasant.  As they pass through their digestive systems, the seeds from the fruit are spread as these birds go on their travels. The pollinator flies, well sometimes they just don't fare as well.  Certain times of the year Scotland has more than enough flies, so I don't mind in the least!

Indigenous people used this plant for food, medicine and created dye from the fruit.  In fact, another common name for Arisaema triphylum is Indian turnip.  A name given because the round bulbous corms were consumed by Native Americans after being dried and cooked thoroughly to extract their high concentration of calcium oxalate which would otherwise cause an intense prickling and burning sensation to the mouth and throat.  Calcium oxalate is found in lower concentrations in many leafy greens and is a factor responsible for producing kidney stones in humans.  

 A rare feature of this plant is its ability to change its gender over time.  The botanical term for this is dichogamy.  The young small Jack in the pulpit plant produces only male flowers. Over the years, through the process of photosynthesis, the plant stores more nutrients in its corm, and the corm gradually grows larger.  After the corm stores enough nutrients, the plant begins to produce both male and female flowers.  Through several years of continued photosynthesis, the corm finally stores enough nutrients that the flowers produced on the plant are only female.  The female plants finally have sufficient nutrients so that they are able to produce the clusters of red fruit that you see in late summer and early fall. After bearing the fruit, the plant, drained of its energy, reverts the following year to producing only male flowers. This process accounts for yet another of the plant's common names which is Jill in the Pulpit.  Take a closer look the next time you see this fascinating plant!