Giant Jack in the Pulpits

Hey, never mind those jokes about NJ being the 'Armpit of the nation'. We are the Garden State!

And to prove it look at this giant of a Jack in the pulpit. I thought I only had two plants which were given to me as a gesture of apology by a person I bought some Jeffersonias from, because the plants were so small. I remembered that I only got two Jacks and I posted photos of those in a previous blog but apparently I was mistakened. Not an altogether uncommon event these days.

Anyway, I saw these new Jacks breaking ground but I thought they were too large to be Arisaemas. The diameter of the larger shoot was about 3/4". But, out popped these Jacks and they kept growing and growing. Actually some information from Wikipedia indicates that they can grow up to 65 centimeters which if my calculation is correct is about 25 inches tall. So this one is certainly in the 99 percentile of growth for Arisaema triphyllums.

The flower of the darker one stands at 22" tall and the smaller green one about 16". The leaves of the taller Jack is over 27" tall so far. I'll check in a week to see if they grew any more because I noticed that the earlier blooming ones did get bigger after the flowers opened. These were planted behind the Trilliums and shaded by Rhododenrons near the air conditioning unit. They must like it there...a lot.