FIELD ID CHARACTERISTICS:
Look for three leaflets in compound leaves, with smooth margins and rising singly from the ground. Leaves and fruits are highly toxic if ingested.
Description: Small to medium herb, characterized by a pair of compound leaves with three leaflets and a flowering spathe with hood. To 60 cm tall.
Leaves: Three leaflets, margins entire, palmately compound. Leaves whitish beneath at maturity.
Flowers/Fruit: Flowering body is in the form of a cup-like structure (spathe) with an overhanging hood and a stiff projection (spadix) in the center. Plants produce individual male or female flowers, but can switch from year to year. Bright red berries appear in late summer and fall. Blooms in March/April; fruits soon after.
Habit and Range: Swamps and bottomlands; common across the state.
Taxonomic Note: USDA lists several subspecies that Weakley splits out into separate species, varying by size and hood/spathe characteristics.
COMMON CONFUSIONS:
Leaflets of Arisaema triphyllum (Jack-in-the-pulpit) in sets of three may be confused with Toxicodendron radicans (eastern poison ivy), but Arisaema triphyllum never has lobed leaves like T. radicans does, and in T. radicans, leaf veins extend to the edges of the leaves.
Click here to view Toxicodendron radicans.
Link to side-by-side comparisons page
