Sprig is definitively here - and it is stinking cute

Skunk cabbage at one of the Forest Preserves of Cook County

Yesterday was the spring equinox- first day of spring – even though we did not have much of a winter this year spring is definitively here. One of the sentinels of this long awaited season is skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), a cool, almost alien-looking plant that is among one of the first that emerges.

I have been “hunting” for this plant for a while. It’s quite rare because it needs a good quality woodland or forest and preferably a seep – type of a wetland fed by groundwater. Needless to say habitat destruction has played a major part in its demise. Also, skunk cabbage is not too easy to notice, so looking for it on your own in an unknown terrain that might be a good habitat is a bit tricky.

skunk cabbage spathe surrounding the spadix (reproductive part of the plant)

Anyways, the plant is neat! It is one of the first ones to bloom in the spring, partially because it has an ability to warm the soil around it (!). The leaves come up later in the season but what you can see (often among snow or some ice on the ground) above the ground is its flowering parts (spadix) surrounded by a smooth, leathery, maroon colored spathe (you can think of it as a petal- but the plant actually lacks true petals and spathe is actually a bract – if I am not mistaken). To me it looks like the spathe surrounds the reproductive parts as if a flame of a (maroon) fire hugging and protecting the rest of the plant: very surreal, elegant and beautiful.

The names comes from the smell – the plant releases odors similar to those of a rotting meat to attract flies. Pretty nifty.