It's a Good Year for Jacks

The yard must be chock full of jack-in-the-pulpit seeds that have been waiting for conditions to be just right, because they are germinating like mad. The established plants have been leaping up and flowering, too, including some bulbs I had experimentally plopped into a fairly dry location last summer.

Jacks, Arisaema triphyllum, are native, and they grow in moist shady locations. In a short while they will be done flowering. Later in the summer, the females will produce a dramatic cluster of bright red berries.

Jacks aren't carniverous, but they have that look about them. Mine seem to come in two varieties: all green, and green with purple bits. Here are photos of one of the purple ones. That blurry pink thing is my thumb.