It does happen in nature, that is why you often see a cluster of baby jacks near a mature plant.

To avoid clusters and for better germination, clean the red pulp from the seeds (use rubber gloves, juice can burn) and scatter the seeds in the areas where you want more jacks.

You can divide them: there is a bulb so dig the clump and gently tease out the individuals.

First year seedlings have only one leaf. Second year plants have three leaflets. Depending upon the amount of light they get, it may take three to four years from planting to see flowers.

Jack's in the wild depend on animals for seed dispersal.

Ants, birds even box turtles are known to disperse arisaema seeds. Leave the seed heads on the ground (or on the plant) and the animals will plant them around for you. You could also bury individual seeds.

Takes around 5 yrs to flower depending on conditions. Jacks also change their sex depending on conditions, larger plants after having a "good" year are usually female but will change to male after a "bad" year. The females, when pollinated, will produce the seeds.

I have seen groups of jacks 3-5 but never as close as these babies are and never as many. They are soo little I doubt they would divide easily at this point. One leaf hugging the ground.

Arcy,

Just wait until fall when the leaves have completely died down, dig up the clump and separate the bulbs. Replant them immediately, but not too deep, maybe around 2" under the soil level. Give them some room to grow as they will need at least 12" of growing space around them when they're adults. PF

When are the seeds ready for planting? In other words, how long should I leave the pod on the plant before attempting to sow the seeds?

When they are bright red they are ripe. But the animals might see them first ;) I took the seed head off one of my asian jacks last year after it was molested by a gray tree rat, it ripened indoors for a couple weeks and seed germinated this spring.

Some people take the pulp off the seeds, like you do with Trillium to make them germinate faster, but I don't think Jack seed pulp has germination inhibitors, they seem to come up no matter what you do.

I have lost of baby jacks around one momma. I dug up a whole clump, separated the individuals and planted them.

Hi I too just yesterday divided 2 yr Arisaema sikokianums from a clump they had been growuing in. I washed as much soil from them as I could and transplanted them to flats in the shady part of the green house. It really wasn't that hard to do just go slow and gently ease them apart.
Good Luck!
Kerrie

Do jack-in-the-pulpits like A LOT OF WATER? I see huge stands of them on a flood plain and some of the plants are two-and-half feet high! The soil doesn't drain well and is perpetually wet.

We are having a bumper year for Jacks here in southern Ontario. I was out gathering some in my yard for a plant swap and found one that was almost 2 feet tall! Others are nearly as tall too. Normally they are 6-8" at full height here. It's been cool and damp so I'm guessing they are loving these conditions. Our soil is VERY poor here. We have a clay/sand mix over a substrate of gravel that is dry as a bone so it sure doesn't take much water for them to grow big like that. I find the Jacks are very easy to transplant and I wouldn't even bother with sewing seeds. Just transplant a few feet apart and let nature do it's thing. Our back yard is thick with Jacks and even the ones that we walk on on our path and around the fire pit I'll dig up and transplant and they do fine.

Barb
Ontario, CANADA

To the person with the multiplying Arisaema sikokianums: Did you have more than one plant to begin with? Is your clump from offsets, or are they seedlings? I have one plant and would like more. I'm feeling a bit dumb, asking questions about plant sex...

MY SO and I just bought a property with 7 (mostly wooded) acres and a stream. The native Arisaemas near the stream are *huge*, and there are tons of seedlings, and tons of variation in the flower color, which is kind of neat. The A. sikokianum is in my garden at my current house. I hope I'm not being environmentally malicious by bringing along the Asian species...

Nora

Grandmom planted Jacks in the garden back in the 1930's. Some of those are monster Jacks now. Last couple years with a very wet spring, we have about 6 that grew to almost four feet tall. The seeds are twice the size of a large pea.

My question is: Are these seeds likely to produce larger than normal plants or is it just that they are very mature bulbs and the the seedlings will be the normal size?

a few years ago I fall planted collected Jack seeds, they did not germinate until the second spring, Is there a way to treet seeds for better germination?

hi, i am curious.... i just dug up some ditch lilies along a the side of a road that is about to be widened and paved over. when i got home and went to replant the lilies i found two jack's hidden among them. it's late may now but is acting like mid april, do i have any hope of the jack's making it. if so i am inclined to go back and search for more before they pave, if not i'd assume not waste my time. thanks.

They can be moved any time of the year.

It would appear a question from 2007 never got answered. If anyone was wondering, a few months of cold will overcome dormancy of JITP seed and can easily be accomplished by putting the seeds in some soil and popping them in the fridge.

:) luvin this site! Mum just brought home a JITP plant and wanted it in her raised garden... it may be a rain garden but I was wondering if it would be happier in the swampy area in our crick? What conditions do they need to multiply?

Jacks tend to like shady, woodland like conditions.

FataMorgana

There is a small cluster of jack-in-the-pulpit growing along the road in the woods near where I live: they are close enough to the road so that when the township digs out the ditches the plants will doubtless be destroyed, and this is the only place around here where I've ever seen them growing. I would like to rescue them but keep reading that they should be dug up in the fall...if I stage a rescue and dig them up now (late June/early July) how can I optimize their chance of survival? It's a rural enough area to allow me to go into the woods near their location to get extra soil to plant them in, and thought under the evergreen in our yard would be an acceptable new home for them since it gets about the same amount of shade under there that they're getting now. How deep and far from the plants should I dig to prevent damage? Any other pointers? Thanks in advance!

I think under deciduous trees might be better. It would be closer to the jack's preferred habitat.

I have a "woodland garden" under a very large old crabapple on the east side of my house. The combo of house and tree block all but early morning sun. The downspouts from the roof adds enough moisture and the copious leaf litter from the crabapple makes for nice woodland-like conditions. I have jacks, trillium, bloodroot, solomons seal, mayapple, twinleaf, bellwort, white baneberry, and more all happily growing there.

Jack-in-the-pulpit have corms, bulb like bases underneath the soil. You don't not have to dig far or wide for them. Plant at the same level.

FataMorgana

I have successfully transplanted Jacks all summer. They may die back but will return next year. The best bet is to dig a shovel full and plant it immediately, disturbing few if any of the roots. It is hard to move them and not snap their stalks, but as I said they return. I would do it in a second, but you may want to check the laws. Many places frown on removing wild flowers from State/county land.

to FataMorgana: Had thought the area where they are growing was under predominantly hemlock, but after reading your post I doublechecked and the hemlocks are further from the JIP than I realized. Have a very shady area under my mother's dogwood and a maple tree, near the edge of the woods, that might be better suited as the daily sunlight amount is very similar to what they get now. Where they are now, they'll get dug up and hauled away with the dirt if/when the town next works on clearing the ditches so I figure it is better to move them than to see them destroyed: I've lived here almost 30 years and am moderately familiar with what's growing along the road I live on - though I often don't know the plant/flower names I still enjoy looking them over and recognizing old favorites as I walk the dogs - and the JIP is a recent arrival, perhaps from deeper in the woods or a critter hauling seeds around. Another relative newbie is red trillium apparently making a comeback to the area, which will also get backhoed out when they do the ditches, 'cuz those fellas dig wide. There are a number of wealthier folks living out here and when they get sick of a plant in their yard they oftimes dig them up and dump them in the woods, so now there's a big patch of some sort of ivy taking over one area and the beginning of a hosta patch growing in another. I figure if they can introduce plants into the woods without getting into trouble I should be able to rescue one or two...

chicory31. i sent you an email

does anyone have any other jack varieties other than triphyllium to trade?

Hello to Wildflower Seekers, my name is Victory Lee and I am an artist of oil paintings and Chinese Brush Painting and make jewelry but that gets old when spring comes but would trade art or jewelry for the things I am discussing below. I take a lot of photos of the things I find in our woods. I live in the Chengwatana State Forest in East Central Minnesota about a stones throw from the St.Croix River on 5 acres of a heavily wooded (Oaks, Elm, Aspen and a few Pines)area about 5 miles east of Rush City, MN. I went out and did some scouting just a few days ago and we have had an early warm spring with a few cold snaps and we usually do not warm up until May and this early spring started in March! We also had a very mild winter which everyone loved, but is really not too good for the earth where I live. Subject: I have so many Jack in the Pulpit I can not believe it, we have always had the big Canadian Trillium and Wild Gardenia, Blood Root, Wild Strawberries, Wild Aster and so many others I would have to go out and make a list. Does anyone want to trade seed heads from Jack in the Pulpit when they turn to the berry stage or any info on pitcher plants and if I do not find Morels I would like to know what to do to get spore so I can grow my own in my woods. I should have morel mushrooms considering the area I live in and the growing conditions. I have also some of the most beautiful poisonous mushrooms I have ever seen of which we take photos of only for obvious reasons. The best one, my husband found on our ATV trail. The cap was brilliant orange with geometrical white bumps growing all over it and the Cap was about the size of a really big cantaloupe. I feel very blessed with what we have in our woods except for the wood ticks and mosquitoes, but I will take the good and rid myself of the bad. I have a bog area at the back of our land and I want to grow pitcher plants. Since I have so many Jacks and Canadian Trillium I was wondering if anyone knew how to find Pitcher Plants where I live, how to grow them or where to find the seed if that is what they even have. If they would like to trade the red seed head of the Jacks and anything else that is unusual for heavily wooded wildflowers I would be very happy. I am going out on a morel mushroom hunt this Sunday in the woods, I am told by an expert in the area of mushrooming that this Sunday will be the best time to look. I do know that they are prone to grow by dead elms but not old big dead elms, but rather smaller ones compared to the giants that may go down from a storm. If I find Morels it will be like finding buried treasure to me. We have a lot of edible mushrooms such as Sulfur shelf and Oh dang I forgot the names...oyster? Oh Nuts! I can't remember the names , botella? but those wre filled with little tiny white worms when I soaked the mushrooms in salted water over night I could not bring my self to eat them, there were thousands of the little worms in the big bowl and all over the table. I will have to get my book out and look the other mushrooms up and let anyone know what I have and how to trade mushroom spore but I understand the danger if you do not. I also have other edible things like ramp and wild chives everywhere. I would like to find a field guide to foraging for wild food in our woods. The ramp is delish. I should have orchids too, I grow them in the house , but want to find the wild ones. OK I have said enough. I will check this sight daily to see if anyone has an interest in trading.

Pitcher plants are endemic to the warmer parts of the Carolinas. You will not see them in your area. Sorry.

Ignore the previous post. I was thinking of the Venus fly trap. Pitcher plants are found in south east Canada, but I don't know exactly where.

Brain is foggy today; must be the rain and the dark and gloomy skies.

How long does the first leaf last and when is the baby corm formed? And how long does it's first winter dormancy last?

I've grown lots of things from seed but this is my first time trying jacks.
If the jacks do good I'll try other arums too.

Joe

Hi. This year my garden mission is to transplant. Jack in the pulpits / trilliums / lady slippers. If anyone has , seeds /transplant tips or soil direction . I'd appreciate. Recently retired , now organizing areas

Trilliums have roots that pull themselves down into the soil, so be careful and go deep if the plants have been in the ground a long time. Have not had any problems digging and replanting jacks, but lady slippers, I assume you mean the yellow ones, need some care. Pink lady slippers are another story, and you need to look that up on line...lots of ideas as to how to be successful, but I have only had moderate success, and I already have them on my property. I add permatil to the hole now to keep the voles away. Don't know where you live, nor your zone, so maybe you don't have critter problems. And knowing your current soil, rain, zone, etc., would help people make more specific suggestions.