A FLOWER PRIEST OF THE BOGS AND MARSHES. 



"Jack-in-the-Pulpit 



Preaches to day ; 

 Come hear what his reverence 



Rises to say, 

 In his queer little pulpit 



This fine Sabbath day." 



— Whittier. 



TO THE delighted readers of a certain depart- 

 ment in SL Nicholas, Jack-in-the-Pulpit dis- 

 penses wisdom evey month, and all who will 

 seek out the little hermit-missionary down 

 among the lush grasses bordering the boggy places where 

 he makes his home will find him equally kind. 

 Whittier's quaint little poem has well described 

 him, for 



" Green is his pulpit, 

 Green are his bands," 



And the canopy above him richly striped 

 with black, brown and green. Doubtless 

 Whittier well knew when himself a "barefoot 

 boy with cheeks of tan " all about 



" Where the whitest lilies blow, 

 Where the freshest berries grow. 

 Where the groundnut trails its vine, 

 Where the wood-grape's clusters shine ; '' 



and stood with bare toes sinking unheeded into 

 the warm, oozy, black earth, while he held this 

 curious arum flower in his small brown palm 

 and peered at it with sharp, bright, boyish eyes, 

 for Whittier was born a naturalist, or he could 

 never have been such a true poet of nature. 



In order to see a Jack-in-the-Pulpit flower, 

 William Hamilton Gibson's ' ' Sharp Eyes " are 

 necessary, for Jack is either so exceedingly 

 modest or so sensitive to heat that, besides his 

 striped canopy, he has taller tri-parted leaves 

 spread out between him and the sun. The 

 knob-like root beneath him is very acrid and 

 bitter, so that if Whittier set his sharp, white 

 teeth into it in eager curiosity or search for 

 knowledge when a boy, he must have made a 

 wry face. 



The spathe-canopy is a rich green when it 

 first unfolds, and all the markings are white ; 

 but as it grows older the tints change and 

 deepen until we have an oddly-marked flower 

 that glistens, when spread out in the sun, with 

 many of the changing colors one sees on a 

 dragon-fly's gauzy wing. After this spathe has 

 withered, and hangs like a furled flag abouj 

 Jack in his old age, few people expect to see an 

 after-glow more beautiful than the plant's 

 blossom ; but soon the green berries that formed 

 the preacher's pedestal begin to brighten, and when he 

 topples off, a spadix covered with gleaming scarlet ber- 



ries shines as a memorial of his ministry among the 

 grasses. "Berry nubbins," I have heard children call 

 them, and truly this club of thickly set berries adhering 

 closely to one common stem, resembles nothing so much 

 as a small red nubbin of Indian corn, ■with this exception, 

 that the surface of the berries is shining and waxen. They 

 retain their beauty and remain unwithered a long while. 

 I have some in a basket of grasses, all cut a year ago, 

 and the berries are as bright as when I gathered them 

 one cold November day. 



Like every well-known flower that is dear to the heart 



of the great public, Jack-u 

 names, "Indian turnip' 



-the-Pulpit has many common 

 being perhaps t h e worst. 



J 



