Ellen D.B. Riggle is an award-winning author and scholar/educator residing in Lexington, Kentucky. Their essays and poems have been published in numerous outlets, including Does It Have Pockets, Earth’s Daughters, Rise Up Review, Sinister Wisdom, The ADVANCE Journal, and Writers Resist. They have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, authored several books, including A Positive View of LGBTQ, and are Executive Producer of the short documentary, “Becoming Myself: Positive Trans & Nonbinary Identities.”

Sex in the Wild with Jill-in-the-Pulpit

Walking through the forest on a dewy, late spring morning, I come upon a Jack-in-the-Pulpit. I quickly scan the area for red warning signs or yellow caution tape closing off this section of trail. There are no prohibitions in sight. 

The Jack-in-the-Pulpit is not an endangered nor poisonous plant. In moist shaded woodlands of the eastern half of the United States, the Arisaema Triphyllum is distinctive, with three green leaflets emerging from a stalk which supports a purple and green striped cylindrical leaf sheath enclosing a pale finger-like spadix in the middle of the cone. The leaf spathe of the plant comes to a climatic point on one side, flapping over the spadix like a roof or hoodie. In the world of botany, someone decided this looked like a man, “Jack,” in a religious sanctuary - the pulpit. I decide not to overthink the label.

All Jack’s begin life as botanically “male.” As the plant matures over successive seasons, Jack-in-the-Pulpit will in all likelihood eventually become Jill-in-the-Pulpit. This may be the reason for an alternate name, Lord-and-Lady. In the forest, the well-known transition doesn’t seem to bother anyone. But, what would happen if a schoolchild happens past and asks their teacher about the two-foot tall inhabitant?  How would the teacher stay within the law while explaining the transgender nature of the showy plant?

Later on my walk, I come upon a friend staring intently at a Red Maple tree.

“Is the tree okay?” I inquire.

“Yes, the tree is very healthy,” the master naturalist replies. “I was just remembering that last year this tree was female, and this year it is female and male.”

No judgment from me for a species that steadfastly refuses to follow ideologically driven sex-assigned-at-birth rules.

The Red Maple is the most common type of tree in the United States, found in the woods and on urban streets. Some Red Maples produce only male flowers, contributing prodigious amounts of pollen to spring allergy season; others produce only female flowers, providing the fun reddish spinners or helicopter (double samara) seeds that whirl through the air delighting children and some dogs.  However, upon closer inspection, we may find a Red Maple tree producing both female and male flowers in the same season. And if we look again the following year, the sex makeup of the tree may have changed. Given this open flouting of essentialist ideology, I expect soon Red Maples will become the official firewood for book burnings.

As I continue my stroll, I reflect on the lessons we can learn from our plant neighbors. The blooms of the Pawpaw tree (Asimina Triloba), for example, have six rounded maroon petals surrounding pale yellow anthers (male stamen) with green female pistils hanging from the center of the flower. These spring bells send out and receive pollen, eventually becoming oblong yellow-green fruit reminiscent of a tropical mix of banana and mango, beloved by local four- and two-legged mammals. Such plants, with female and male parts on the same flower, are referred to as “perfect.” 

We unthinkingly – and quite naturally - adorn our homes with perfect bisexual roses and lilies, gaze in awe at the intricate perfection of orchids, and devote books, websites, festivals, and odes to the exquisitely perfect fruit of the cacao tree – chocolate! What bliss might ensue if we adopt the “perfect” nomenclature for humans with the same cosexual characteristics? After all, many cultures, including Indigenous peoples on the landmass we now call the United States, recognize that female and male may exist in the same human flower, and regard this as a gift of nature, essential to our survival and thriving.

Plants form the basis of support for all human life; an abundance of diversity is necessary for our collective health. In the plant world, a sex change (or two or three or more) is quite common. Dual sex plants flourish. My morning walk in the wild fills me with new appreciation, awe, and affinity for Jack’s and Jill’s, ordinary but no-less majestic Red Maples, and the perfect bloom of the Pawpaw.