In a previous post this spring, I included a picture of a Jack-in-the-Pulpit with some berries that I hoped would ripen this summer.  Here they are!  The leaves have died away, but the berries continued to ripen–aren’t they a gorgeous red? In reading about this flower, I discovered that a plant is either male or female and can change sex from year to year, depending on growing conditions the previous summer.  This was a female flower.  Also, the females have two sets of leaves while the males have only one, an easy way to tell the sexes apart. If it is a hard summer and the corm is unable to store much energy, the plant will come back in the spring as a male.  Then if that male plant has a really good summer, it can come back as a female the next year.  All Jack-in-the-Pulpits start out as males for the first year or two to allow the corm to grow. Interesting, huh?