Hello. Here is another unusual plant I found on my property this weekend. I was clearing a patch of brush and found this thing sticking up out of the ground. It has no leaves or other "green parts" and no elaborate root system. It is obviously a tuber, not a bulb. The root is very much like a potato or turnip and has no layers at all. The stalk appears to have no chlorpyll. There does appear to be a small pointy node on the top of the root that looks like the growth-top of a bulb. The seeds are nearly identical to pomegranite seeds, but they radiate from a central fleshy sphere on the top of the stalk. There does appear to be the remnants of some kind of outer skin or rind, though it is paper-thin. I have searched around to find some reference to this, but I'm not finding anything. If it is a pomegranite, it doesn't seem to be growing as I understand a pomegranite should grow and fruit. Any help would be great!
That is what I thought, too! The seeds are the same form and have the same colour, but it sure doesn't grow like a pomegranite. I haven't seen anything really "odd" growing from that patch of brush, so I'm stumped as to what this is.
Obviously whatever it is has already flowered and produced fruit. Apparantly it does this either before or after producing leaves. The fruit looks like something in the Moraceae family.
The tuber being exposed is a little unusual, as exposed tubers are good fodder for browsing animals. I will surmise that whatever the plant is, it is probably most often found with the tuber entirely below ground. - the fruiting stalk looks very much like an Arisaema sp. (Jack in the Pulpit) - the tuber also looks very much like an Arisaema sp. - an exposed tuber, not eaten by browsing animals is likely poisonous (Arisaema tubers are poisonous) - in wet places, the tuber grows very close to the surface - the only two native species are A. triphyllum & A. dracontium - non-native Arisaema species are virtually non existent outside of the garden Hope that helps Simon
It isn't a pom., but pom's are grown into small trees every day in bonsai, some not so small (though they'd be so in a garden).
Thanks Simon! You are correct, it is an Arisaema dracontium. I had a few very tall, single stalked plants around the property (including this brush area). I thought they were very odd, and I almost posted a photo in this forum. The stalks had a green & silver mottling, and each stalk had one very large semi-cicular leaf head. The leaflets were very long and pinnate, with prominant regular veins. The stalks just came right out of the ground. They lasted a couple of months and went away a week ago or so. I really appreciate the help...and I wasn't thinking of trying to taste it! The main reason I connected the pom with this was that we had some poms from the store that went bad last year and we threw them into this area. But I was sure that poms didn't come out of the ground this way! Thanks again.
