Go slow; look down

There are reasons to look down while walking in the woods. Obviously you need to know where you place your feet. And you will want to avoid stepping on and snapping sticks, if you are trying to be quiet. Another reason to look down is to find interesting things on the forest floor.

I was walking slowly, scanning the ground carefully on Feb. 9, when I saw something red. Had I been walking fast, I surely would have missed the small berries you see here. I thought it might be a bird's dropping, but when I removed a leaf I recognized a Jack-in-the-Pulpit seed cluster.

In the photo you can see a green Christmas fern leaf pointing to two light yellow seeds of the Jack-in-the-Pulpit. The outer covering of the seeds is red and is being eroded away by weather. The odd looking dark object is the center of the pod which the seeds grew upon.

It may take two or more years before these tiny seeds sprout.