Monday, April 28, 2014

Jack-in-the-Pulpit or Jill-in-the-Pulpit?




After the early spring ephemerals have bloomed Jack in the Pulpit emerges, typically in moist situations. In the SBG they can be found alongside the trail
Jack peeking out over the pulpit edge
that leads from the formal garden to the
bridge over the creek that runs beside the Orange trail . This unusual plant is in the Arum family (Araceae; pronounced: ah-Ray-see-e).  All the Arums have the same reproductive structure: a central column, called a spadix, that bears flowers and is partially or completely surrounded by a spathe. In Jack in the Pulpit the spathe forms the "pulpit" and the "preacher" inside is the "Jack." But it's a little sexist to call every such plant Jack-in-the-Pulpit because the sexes occur in separate plants. A spadix usually bears either all male flowers or all female flowers. So some of the "jacks" are really "jills."

Telling males from females

How do you tell them apart? There are two ways. The jills are larger plants with two leaves, while the jacks have only a single leaf. (What looks like three leaves is really a single leaf with three leaflets.) So if all the pulpits are growing from single leaved plants they are truly jacks, i.e., male.
The second way to sex a Jack-in-the-Pulpit is to carefully open the spathe. By gently pulling apart the overlapping edges of the spathe you can see the flowers on the lower part of the spadix. These flowers have no petals or sepals. If they are plump and green with white centers you are looking at a jill. The jack spadix has numerous small, non-plump flowers with dark anthers and pink pollen.

Deciding to be jack or jill.

Jack in the Pulpit is a perennial plant, so you might think that a single plant would remain the same sex from year to year. But nature is full of surprises. Jack in the Pulpit can change sex from one year to the next. Whether it develops as a male or female apparently depends on how much food it has stored during the previous years growth. If there is sufficient food stored in the corm then a female will emerge the following spring. If not, then the plant will develop as a male, or may not even produce an inflorescence if its stored energy is too little. Now you can understand the reason for the two leaves in female plants. After pollen has been delivered to the ovules the plant must have enough energy to develop its seeds, a process that takes all summer. Having two leaves increases the amount of sunlight captured to feed the growing seeds. Typically, if a plant has assumed the female role in one year, then the energy consumed in producing seeds will be so large that the plant reverts to being male in the next year.

You can find more details about the interesting life history of Jack-in-the-Pulpit in the book by Carol Gracie: Spring Wildflowers of the Northeast: A Natural History, 2012, Princeton University Press.

Saturday, April 26, 2014

April 24 2014 Species List



SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES (April 24, 2014):
Common Name
Scientific Name
Comment
International Garden
Lyre Leaf Sage
Salvia lyrata
Flowering
Arkansas Amsonia or Hubricht's Amsonia
Amsonia hubrichtii
Flowering
Coreopsis
Coreopsis sp.
Flowering
 Carolina Silverbell
Halesia carolina
Flowering
Wild or Florida Azalea
Rhododendron austrinum
Flowering
Wild Azalea
Rhododendron 'Coccinea Speciosa
Flowering
Endangered Plants Garden
Orange Wild Azalea
Rhododendron prunifolia
Flowering
Yellow Wild Azalea
Rhododendron flammeum
Flowering
Georgia Rockcress
Arabis georgiana
 Flowering
Columbine
Aquilegia canadensis
Flowering
Hairy Stemmed Spiderwort 
Tradescantia hirsuticaulis
Flowering
Blue Toadflax
Nuttallanthus canadensis
Flowering
Hairy Rattleweed
Baptisia arachnifera
 Flowering
Blue False Indigo
Baptisia australis
Flowering
False Rosemary
Conradina canescens,
 syn. Calamintha canescens

Physic Garden
Spanish Bluebells
Hyacinthoides hispanica
Flowering
Wild Hyacinth
Camassia sp.

Sweet Woodruff
Galium odoratum

Lily of the Valley
Convallaria majali
Flowering
Heritage Garden
Yellow Sweetshrub
Calycanthus floridus
'Athens’ Cultivar
Paw Paw
Asimina triloba
Few flowers left
Red Buckeye
Aesculus pavia
Flowering
Flower Garden
American Wisteria
Wisteria frutescens
 Prominent flower buds
Dwarf Crested Iris
Iris cristata
Flowering
Oak apple gall


Green and Gold
Chrysogonum virginianum
Flowering
Orange Trail
Wild Yam
Dioscorea villosa

Wild Geranium
Geranium maculatum
Flowering
Jack-in-the-pulpit
Arisaema triphyllum
Flowering
Blue-eyed Grass
Sisyrinchium sp.
Flowering
Yellow Three Parted Violet 
Viola tripartita
Few flowers; mostly gone
Spotted Wintergreen/Spotted Pipsissewa
Chimaphila maculate

Rue Anemone 
Thalictrum thalictroides
Flowers
Yellowroot 
Xanthorhiza simplicissima
No flowers
Broad Beech Fern
Phegopteris hexagonoptera

Mayapples
Podophyllum peltatum
Fruit forming
Rattlesnake Fern
Botrypus virginianus
Fertile frond
Little Brown Jugs
Hexastylis arifolia
Flowering
Atamasco Lily
Zephyranthes atamasco
Flowering
Wild Blackberry
Rubus sp.
Flowering
Spinyfruit Ranunculus
Ranunculus muricatus
Flowering
Blue Star
Amsonia tabernaemontana
Flowering
Rain Lily
Zephyranthes atamasco
Flowering
Sparkleberry
Vaccinium arboretum