Who is this emerging plant?
Jack-in-the-Pulpit is unfurling! Named for the resemblance to a preacher in a canopied pulpit, “Jack” is a spadix (a spike with many small flowers) and “the pulpit” is a spathe (a modified leaf bract that surrounds the spadix).
Jack-in-the-Pulpit bears male flowers for the first year or two, then the sex of “Jack’s” flowers depends on the amount of fall food accumulated in the corm (underground food storage organ). With ample food, a female plant, usually with two leaves, arises in the spring. With less food, a male plant, usually with one leaf, emerges. If the corm is starved, only a leaf develops.
Take a peek inside the “pulpit” to confirm the sex of Jack-in-the-Pulpit. Male plants have stubby purple projections with stamens dusted in yellow pollen. Female plants have a cluster of small green berries, which will mature into brilliant red fruits in late summer.
Male Jack-in-the-Pulpit left (Laval University, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons) and female Jack-in-the-Pulpit right (Homer D. House, New York State Botanist. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons).