Jack in the Pulpit

Since much of our land is wooded, 

we have many varieties of Jack in the Pulpit here on the homestead. 

This year, they flourished because it was so wet. 

All of these were growing along the back woods, 

next to the gravel driveway to the pole barn.

While I have taken time to note them in in the past, 

this year I happened to notice them after the spathe (pulpit) 

and flower on the spadix (Jack) had withered. 

What is left behind are masses of shiny, green berries.

I'd never noticed the berries before, as I typically hike in the spring and the fall 

in order to avoid poison ivy, stinging nettles, and the worst of the tick season,

and because my twice-daily trek to the barn is usually across the grass and not along the drive. 

I looked up Jack in the Pulpits and learned that the seeds will turn red in the late fall. 

Now I am tempted to collect them and grow some plants from seed. Although I also learned that it takes 3 years for the plants to form a bloom, and I'm not sure that I want to invest that much time before most folks could even tell that they were Jack in the Pulpits. It would just be easier and more effective to dig up the corms of the ones along the woods and transfer them to where I want them, assuming they can survive transplanting. (Corms are sort of like bulbs. Crocus have them.) I've never seen Jack in the Pulpits in anyone's flowerbed before, so I might go for it. Since we tore out the decrepit bushes that ran along the front of the house, we are in need of some plantings there anyway.