The dagger plant

Species name: Alocasia sanderiana

Common name: kris plant

Location: UWO Greenhouse

I was surprised to find out about the status of this plant according to the IUCN, considering the fact that I just saw about 50 of these plants available for sale in the nursery section of the local grocery store. The kris plant, named that way because the edge of the leaf is reminiscent of the blade of the kalis dagger (also known as a kris), is native to the Philippines where it is listed as critically endangered. Despite this, it is sold by the thousand every year as an ornamental plant. It is now rarely harvested from the wild (still done in some places despite it being against international sanctions imposed by the IUCN, and the trade of this plant from the Philippines to the rest of the world is illegal), and commonly grown in greenhouses. As with other tropical house plants, make sure you know the origin of the plant (not just the company that ships it, but where they got the original stock from to grow the plant!) before buying. If the company can't tell you where they get their plant material from for whatever reason, don't buy it!

There are a few programs in place for the conservation of this species, but only indirectly. What I mean by this is that there are ecosystem-wide conservation efforts currently underway in the Philippines (some restoration efforts as a result of recent typhoon and tsunamis), but none specifically focus on the status of this particular species. Other than having incredibly attractive leaves, it has no known use to humans (it is not edible like its close relative, the taro) so this probably contributes in part to the lack of attention paid to it. It is, thankfully, quite common in one of the most well protected national parks in the Philippines, so for now it is unlikely to go extinct in the wild (unless a tsunami rips through the area...). A replanting effort would also be a good start! I've never been to the Philippines so I've never seen them for myself in the wild, but apparently they can grow to be over 6 feet tall. That's a single leaf,  six feet off the ground. It would be like an umbrella!

The flower of the kris plant is the characteristic flower of the Araceae, or the arum family. It has the greenish-white spathe surrounding the inflorescence, and the white spadix that contains the separate male and female flowers. In this particular inflorescence, the male flowers are at the top to be better exposed to the wind to blow the pollen to a neighbouring plant, and the female flowers are near the base of the spadix, where the spathe can catch the pollen and transfer it to the spadix. Not all spadices (spadixes? Spadii?) are arranged that way; some are only male or only female, some are completely bisexual but only either the male or the female flower parts are active at any one time, and sometimes both male and female parts on the same flower are active all the time. The base of the petioles (or the "leaf stalk") are attached to the ground-level stem, in this case a rhizome. Many species of this genus and closely related genera have a specialized structure called a corm; these are very similar to bulbs, but instead of having fleshy leaves as a storage organ, it's the stem itself that's fleshy to store starch and sugars. This is the case in taro, which is widely eaten (taro chips are fantastic, and the Hawaiians make a special dish out of taro called poi). Another plant with a corm that would kill you if you ate it would be the hyacinth (which you can read all about HERE).

Peekaboo! I see you!

Species name: Arisaema triphyllum

Common name: Jack-in-the-pulpit, bog onion, brown dragon, Indian turnip

Location: Ontario

Jack in the pulpit flowers are great examples of exceptions in the plant world, which is one of the reasons why I like them so much. It is another example of a native eastern North American plant. We have these growing in our back yard, which confused me at first (like they do many people) since I mistook them for poison ivy and ripped out all of the leaves one year (with gloves on!). The leaves of poison ivy and jack in the pulpit are both what are called "trifolate", which means there are three leaflets coming out of each "leaf point" on the stem. Once this plant starts to flower, however, is very obvious that it's not poison ivy! Silly me. Like the last plant in this blog, hyacinth, jack in the pulpit also grows from a corm.

One of the amazing things about this plant is just how variable it can be depending on environmental conditions, and what type of genetic variation it contains. The flowers themselves can range in size from 12-36 cm tall, and can be anywhere from pure green (like in the photo) to green with dark brown (almost purple) stripes. The "jack" on the inside can also be bright green or dark purple-brown, or anywhere in between. The plants themselves can be from 30-65 cm tall, depending on nutrient levels of the soil.

In general, a good rule to use to figure out if a plant is a monocot (in other words, most closely related to grasses) or a dicot (in other words, most closely related to an oak tree) is by the shape of their leaves and the number of flower parts. In general, monocots have long and thin leaves with parallel veins and flowers with flower parts (petals, sepals, stamens and stigmas) in multiples of three. Dicots have broad leaves with net-like veins and flower parts in multiples of either fours or fives. Jack in the pulpit, then, seems to be a dicot. Its leaves are broad and have net-like veins, and unless you have a very powerful hand lens it's impossible to tell if flower parts are in multiples of 3s or 4-5s. Unfortunately...that would be incorrect. This is a monocot! One unusual group of monocots is the family Araceae, which includes the peace lily (a common ornamental plant, often used as an aquatic plant in wedding centrepieces). They have broad leaves with (mostly) parallel veins (but some are cross-wise) and a specific type of flower called the spathe and spadix. Here, "Jack" would be the spadix and his pulpit would be the spathe. If you zoom in on the spadix, you would see that it's actually a multi-flowered flower head (called an inflorescence), with each little facet on the spadix being one flower. Neat!

But, of course, the uniqueness of this plant doesn't stop there. This is also a great plant to demonstrate all of the unique evolutionary mechanisms plants have derived to avoid self-pollination or inbreeding. There are separate male and female flowers on the spadix, but never both at the same time. Usually the plant starts with predominantly male flowers (if there are female flowers, they are not mature yet) that are producing pollen. Flies are attracted to the spadix because they are much warmer than the ambient air (thanks to the spathe), and they have a rather...unpleasant smell. The fly is covered in pollen, then travels to another flower. If the plant plays its cards right, the next flower will be predominantly female flowers (if there are male flowers, they are no longer mature) which are receptive to receiving pollen. The fly deposits the pollen onto the stigmas, and pollination occurs. Even neater!

This plant is absolutely toxic if consumed raw (it contains calcium oxalate crystals which can perforate the digestive tract), but is actually often cooked as a root crop like you would cook potatoes (but boiled a bit longer because they're much tougher) and eaten. I have never tried it so I can't vouch for what it would taste like, but I can't imagine it would be too flavourful. Native North American people often used this plant as a medicine to treat sore eyes, rheumatism, bronchitis, snake bites, and to induce sterility. Whether or not it's an effective treatment against any of these I have no idea. I wouldn't recommend experimenting.