Jack-in-the-Pulpits in Vermont
Jack-in-the-Pulpits is a common name for a complex of five closely-related species, three of which are known to occur in Vermont: Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum), Bog Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema stewardsonii), and Small Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema pusillum). A few key questions are sufficient to determine the species:
- Are the leaflets glaucous or green underneath?
- Is the spathe tube strongly fluted (ridged) in cross-section?
- Is the spathe hood striped underneath?
- Is the tip of the spadix cylindric or clavate?
If in doubt, it’s probably best to assign an ID at the level of the species complex (Arisaema triphyllum species complex). For more information, see:
- Jack-in-the-Pulpits in Vermont (googledoc)
A table of characters and an identification key are included, plus information about the geographical distribution of Arisaema in Vermont and New England. A short glossary is included at the end of the googledoc.
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Tom,
Thanks for this post and the detailed "Jack-in-the-Pulpits in Vermont" Google document. I was happy yo see you included the terminology section, it helped me. I also pulled out one of my favorite books for botany: Plant Identification Terminology by Harris and Harris.
John
@brewbooks thanks John. Your comment prompted me to append a line to the above teaser.
Btw, looking at BONAP, it seems that Arisaema doesn't make it across the continental divide. That said, I see that you have a couple of observations from PA. I don't know the situation there but I suspect it is similar to VT.
Thanks for this; definitely something I have been curious about!
Thanks @raffib128 eventually I'll get around to reviewing observations in VT. I suspect that few of them will make it to species.
Great post. I'm anxious to take a closer look this spring. The situation is the same in PA - all three are treated as subspecies. Rhoads, A F. & Block, T. A. (2007) The Plants of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Thank you. 60 years ago the original owner of my house dug up Trillium, Trout Lilies, and Jack-in-the-Pulpit from neighboring meadows and replanted them in a small garden. The meadows are gone, replaced by a highway, and the growing conditions are changed, but I try to keep the garden going. I'll look better at the Jack-in-the-Pulpit when it comes up this spring.
Interesting. It seems that these are subspecies. Wouldn't it be more accurate if the iNat taxons were Arisaema triphyllum triphyllum, A. triphyllum stewardsonii, A. triphyllum pusillum? That would give someone the choice of whether to go down to the subspecies level or to leave it at the species level.
This is a great resource, Tom! Thanks for putting it together. I have not split Arisaema triphyllum before but will be taking a closer look this coming growing season thanks to this doc.
@zitserm your comment resonates. I see other floras treat these as subspecies, as well.
@zitserm they were subspecies on iNat previously. For reasons that remain mysterious to me, the majority of botanists elected to synonymize these elements without justification, or force them under A. triphyllum. They are distinct in almost every meaningful way (habitat, flower morphology, chromosome number, range, etc.).
Thanks @rynxs . In that case, it really does make sense to have them as distinct species!
I've annotated all observations in Vermont (at least all that can be annotated). At this point there are only 24 observations of Arisaema stewardsonii in VT, but based on current data, peak flowering times for A. triphyllum and A. stewardsonii are in May and June, respectively. That result seems to hold if you expand the region to all of New England.
I added a step to the identification key that rules out Arisaema pusillum in some cases. Thanks to @tsn for the insight.
Thanks, this reference is fantastic.
Thanks @larryrush if you spot any errors in the document, or if something's not clear, please let me know.
@zitserm they definitely would be better at subspecies but unfortunately iNaturalist has adopted the trend to do away with subspecies and elevate nearly any perceptible difference in plants to species level. So yeah it's kind of screwed up the ability to track this species and its variations. At least in this case there's a complex available, which si probably all anyone is going to get from most observations of this species and it's new 'species' level subspecies.
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