Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum)
Family: Arum Family (Araceae)
IUCN Conservation Status: Unassessed
Also known as the Bog Onion or Brown Dragon Arum, the Jack-in-the-Pulpit is a small and highly unusual plant found across much of eastern North America. Growing to be around 60cm (2ft) tall, it bears its tiny flowers between March and June on a long spike-like structure surrounded by a large striped leaf known as a pulpit or spathe (which serves to protect the fragile flowers, provides a surface for pollinators to land on and attracts pollinators with its striking patterns, and which is often mistaken for the plant's flower) and is unusual among plants in that it is a sequential hermaphrodite; young adult individuals produce exclusively pollen-producing "male" flowers, but as they age they begin to produce a progressively larger number of pollen-receiving, seed-producing "female" flowers, with all of the flowers on older individuals being "female." The curved internal structure of the pulpit makes it difficult for insects to leave it the way they entered it, and as the "sex" of a Jack-in-the-Pulpit changes throughout its life, its reproductive strategy also changes; the pulpits of young individuals have small openings on their underside that allow their pollinators (mainly small flies, but also certain beetles) to leave and carry the plant's pollen away from it, but in older "female" individuals, in what is assumed to be an adaptation to ensure that any pollen carried into the pulpit is transferred to the flowers, the pulpit has no such opening, trapping the insects permanently and making this species a very rare example of a plant that kills its pollinators. As a defence against herbivorous animals the leaves and stems of Jack-in-the-Pulpits are poisonous and lined with tiny needle-like calcium structures called raphides which cause painful irritation and aid the toxins in entering the tissues of animals that bite or crush the plant, although following pollination "female" flowers develop into small red berries that, after ripening and falling from the plant, can be safely eaten by birds and certain small mammals, allowing the seeds within to be transported away from their parent in the animal's digestive system. Young Jack-in-the-Pulpits are mature enough to bare flowers at around 3 years of age, and enter a state of dormancy in which their leaves and aboveground stems die back each autumn/fall, rapidly re-growing in the spring with the help of a nutrients-filled extension of their roots called a corm. While all populations of Jack-in-the-Pulpits were historically regarded as belonging to a single species, genetic evidence now suggests that they are likely a species complex (a group of very closely related and near-identical species that are difficult to reliably distinguish from one another,) made up of at least 4 distinct species with a possible 5th species being recognised by some authorities.
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Image Source: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/50310-Arisaema-triphyllum