English▸ noun any of several small plants of the arum family.
● a North American arum with a green or purple-brown spathe. Genus Arisaema, family Araceae: three species, the woodland jack-in-the-pulpit (A. atrorubens), the small jack-in-the-pulpit or swamp jack-in-the-pulpit (A. triphyllum), and the northern jack-in-the-pulpit (A. stewardsonii).
● another term for cuckoopint
– ORIGIN mid 19th century : so named because the erect spadix overarched by the spathe resembles a person in a pulpit.