Jack in the Pulpit

This is Jack in the Pulpit - Arisaema triphyllum - an enduring wildflower out here.

It endures probably because it's poisonous and the deer don't eat it.

The blasted deer eat everything.  

Everything.

Including every last one of the leaves on my brand new plum tree.   Which really ticked me off.   And which I took as a personal affront.  

If I ever meat meet that deer, it will be dinner.   My dinner.  And it will probably be delicious as it has been subsisting on a diet of my orchard trees.

This is one happy Jack in the Pulpit.   Normally they are 8-24 inches high, but this one was easily 3 feet high.   Notice the two leaves - and each leaf has three lobes very similar to trillium leaves.     These bloom after the trilliums.

They make gorgeous shade garden plants.   And they're pretty easy, unless you accidentally weed them out, which has never, ever happened to me.   It's just that the Jack in the pulpits in my garden mysteriously disappeared that one day after I was weeding. 

It was a coincidence, I'm sure. 

Jack in the Pulpit

This is our south woods.  The big creek runs right through it.  It's quiet and peaceful and beautiful and we're always finding cool things there.

Like unusual wildflowers.

And humongous snapping turtles with their babies hanging on to their backs.

And salamanders under the rocks.

And parts of old tractors.

And not too far away from the creek, there's a sinkhole with two washing machines in it.  Weird.  One washing machine I can see, but, really.  Two??

It's our plan to figure out a way to haul out the washing machines.    Eventually.   I shudder to think of what else might be down there.



Anyway.

This isn't about the sinkhole or the creek or the turtles.

It's about Jack in the Pulpit.

Lily found them - just a few. 

They camouflage well, don't you think?