This native perennial emerges as a green and brown spike and becomes a flowering stalk up to 2 feet tall (A,B). The club-like “jack,” first green then purplish brown, sits in a sheath with hood (like a pulpit). The two leaves, on stout stalks, have 3 large leaflets each (B,F). The fruit clusters are first green (C), then a shiny red by late August (D). And when the flower is just about ready to wilt – on darker stalks now – and the light is just right, then you might experience what looks like a “flame” (E). By mid-summer the stalks holding the large leaves often fold over just below the three leaflets to reveal the much lighter undersides (F).
Grows in floodplain forests, flowering in April and May. In Fontenelle Forest, common, for instance along Walking Club Trail. At Neale Woods, common on Pond and Paw Paw Trails.
The Pawnee boiled or baked the fleshy underground stems, then pulverized and applied them as a counterirritant for rheumatism and other pains. Other common names include Preacher-In-The-Pulpit and Indian Turnip.
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