ARUM FAMILY 



Spadix. — Smooth, club-shaped, pale green, much shorter 

 than the spathe and bearing the tiny flowers about its base. 

 When a spadix bears both kinds of flowers at the same time 

 the sterile flowers are above the fertile; each sterile flower 

 of a cluster consists of four anthers, opening by chinks at 

 the top. There is neither calyx nor corolla. The fertile 

 flowers are at the base of the spadix, and consist each of a 

 one-celled ovary, tipped with a depressed stigma. 



Fruit. — Ball-like cluster of bright scarlet berries. 



Pollinated by small flies, gnats, and beetles. Nectar- 

 bearing. 



" Jack-in-the-Pulpit preaches to-day, 

 Under the green trees, just over the way; 

 Squirrel and Song-Sparrow high on their perch, 

 Hear the sweet lUy-bells ringing to church. 



" Come, hear what his reverence rises to say, 

 In his low-painted pulpit, this calm Sabbath day. 

 Fair is the canopy over him seen 

 Pencilled by nature's hand, black, brown, and green. 

 Green is his surphce, green are his bands; 

 In his queer little pulpit the Uttle priest stands. 



" So much for the preacher, the sermon comes next — 

 Shall we tell how he preached it, and where was his text ? 

 Alas ! like too many grown-up folks who play 

 At worship in churches man-builded to-day. 

 We heard not the preacher expound or discuss; 

 But we looked at the people, and they looked at us. 



" We saw all their dresses, their colors, and shapes. 

 The trim of their bonnets, the cut of their capes; 

 We heard the wind-organ, the bee, and the bird. 

 But of Jack-in-the-Pulpit we heard not a word." 



— Clara Smith. 



The fancy of calling this flower Jack-in-the-Pulpit 

 seems to have arisen from a resemblance between the 



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