Handbook of Nature-Study 



JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT 



Teacher's Story 



"With hooded heads and shields of green, 



Monks of the wooded glen, 

 I know you well; you are, I ween, 

 Robin Hood's merry men." 



"CHILD'S OWN BOOK OF FLOWERS." 



HIS little preacher is a prime favorite 

 with all children, its very shape, 

 like that of the pitcher plant, sug- 

 gesting mystery; and what child 

 could fail to lift the striped hood to 

 discover what might be hidden be- 

 neath! And the interest is en- 

 hanced when it is discovered that 

 the hood is but a protection for the 

 true flowers, standing upon a club- 

 shaped stem, which has been made 

 through imagination into "Jack," 

 the little preacher. 



Jack-in-the-pulpit prefers wet lo- 

 cations but is sometimes found on 

 dry, wooded hillsides; the greater 

 abundance of blossoms occurs in late 

 May. This plant has another name, 

 which it earned by being interesting 

 below ground as well as above. It 

 has a solid, flattened, food-store- 

 house called a corm with a fringe of 



coarse rootlets encircling its upper portion. This corm was used as a food 

 by the Indians, which fact gave the plant the name of Indian turnip. 

 I think all children test the corm as a food for curiosity, and retire from 

 the field with a new respect for the stoicism of the Indian when enduring 

 torture; but this is an undeserved tribute. When raw, these corms are 

 peppery because they are filled with minute, needle-like spicules which, 

 however, soften with boiling, and the Indians boiled them before eating 

 them. 



Jack-in-the-pulpit is a near cousin to the calla lily ; the white part of 

 the calla and the striped hood over "Jack" are both spathes, and a spathe 

 is a leaf modified for the protection of a flower or flowers. "Jack" has 

 but one leg and his flowers are set around it, all safely enfolded in the 

 lower part of the spathe. The pistillate flowers which make the berries 

 are round and greenish, and are packed like berries on the stalk; they 

 have purple stigmas with whitish centers. The pollen-bearing flowers are 

 mere little projections, almost white in color, each usually bearing four 

 purplish, cup-like anthers filled with white pollen. Occasionally both 

 kinds of flowers maybe found on one spadix, (as "Jack" is called in the 

 botanies), the pollen-bearing flowers being set below the others; but 

 usually they are on separate plants. Professor Atkinson has demon- 



