Skunk Cabbage: A Year Later

Last year I found my first skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) during an adventure I documented here. It's definitely one of my favorite plants, and its smell is not to be missed. Plus, the fact that it's one of the first flowers to bloom as spring approaches makes it a welcome sight after the dreariness of winter.

After seeing it last year, I wondered when it would bloom again. This year's winter hasn't been as wonky as last year's was; we've had a few snowfalls and it has been colder, which is good. Of course, there are always some warm snaps, and two weeks ago one greeted us. I took advantage of it to see if the skunk cabbage was blooming yet, and it was definitely there.

 

Shy skunk cabbage

 My foray was on January 19, a little more than a month before last year's adventure. The skunk cabbage wasn't in full bloom as it was back then, but perhaps in another week or two it will be. You can see in the above picture that the spathe is just starting to emerge, but isn't exposing the spadix (the ball that contains the flowers) quite yet.

The red and yellow thing there is the spathe, which protects the spadix. It's a fleshy bract (modified leaf), and releases the skunk cabbage's pungent odor which damaged. All the spathes I saw are smaller than last year's, since it's earlier in the season.

The area was dotted with these gnome-like eruptions from the ground, and the dead leaves could not stop their growth. It's always a challenge to avoid stepping on the plants due to their sheer numbers, so I damaged a few of them, though not fatally.

There's still more than enough time in the season to find skunk cabbage, so if you're in the eastern US and have some free time in the coming weeks, go check out places near you that are damp throughout the year. Wetlands are great skunk cabbage habitat, so start there! Bring a portable thermometer with you in case you find them for a neat experiment. Skunk cabbage produces its own heat through cellular respiration, which melts nearby snow and allows it to bloom so early. Try putting the thermometer inside the spathe to see if it's warmer than the ambient temperature around you!

As a side note, all the pictures taken for this post are from my Droid X phone. Not as good as my regular camera, but they sure do get the point across!

Grad School Preparations: The Journey

Other than my Hildreth Project, my time has recently been spent finishing a graduate school application. Everything came together quite nicely, and I sent that sucker in last week.

The next stage: the visit. I'll be flying to Arkansas on Thursday and staying for a few days to check out the campus, meet the Entomology department, and see how I'd fit in. It will be an exciting weekend and I'm looking forward to it. Perhaps soon I'll know for sure what I'm going to be doing in the coming years!

I'm aiming to get a few more blog posts up before the end of January; there will definitely be at least one. Possibly about skunk cabbage, since it's that time of year again...

Symplocarpus foetidus

Until then, wish me luck in Arkansas!

Mission Complete: Skunk Cabbage

A year ago, while I was in Costa Rica studying abroad, I heard about the mythical skunk cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus. This magical plant was said to flower during late winter and early spring, and to even have the powers to melt snow around it and attract some of the first insect pollinators of the year.

After seeing some marvelous pictures of this legendary arum, I resolved to find this plant myself. Unfortunately, I was in Costa Rica. (Yes, I'm aware that this is probably the first time that sentence has ever been said.) By the time I returned to the United States, the flowers were gone.

But now, after an entire year, we're in the correct season and all the elements have come together to form perfect skunk cabbage weather. Today, my class schedule even worked out, resulting in my Lower Plants lab taking a trip to search for the prize.

Ladies and gentlemen: we have skunk cabbage!

As we entered an area with a natural seep to look for the cabbage, we were teased with the...."distinct" smell of skunk cabbage. It was either that, or sewage. At any rate, I was mad with a feverish yearning to find this most desirable of cabbages. Descending a hill, we entered a wet area and knew we were close. My eyes scanned past a growth of cattails to discover standing water.

My mind was racing.

I searched for any characteristic feature: mottled red on green, bright green leaves...anything not familiar to me. And th--HOLY CRAP, THERE IT IS!

Like a beautiful green sentry, there the skunk cabbage leaf stood: curled up, surveying its territory from CENTIMETERS above the water. Truly, this is royalty. I jumped up and down and shouted for joy, much to the chagrin of my lab companions. However, manners were secondary to my cause at this point. After about five minutes of bolting from plant to plant, I finally settled down enough to examine the Hope Diamond of plants.

Being in the arum family, skunk cabbage has a spathe and spadix. The spathe is actually the fleshy, modified leaves surrounding that weird-looking ball in the middle of the plant. That pimply ball is the spadix, which has small, white flowers that are pollinated by insects such as flies, bugs, and beetles. Since the flowers are so inconspicuous, they aren't in charge of attracting the pollinators. Rather, that delectable stench is the attractant. It worked pretty well on me, so it must be good enough for all those pollinators, eh?

I was positively giddy once we found the skunk cabbage--probably to the point of freaking everyone else out. My long year of waiting was well worth it: I was not disappointed at all with what I found. This is truly a remarkable plant...from the smell to the colors to the message. If you find skunk cabbage, it means Spring surely isn't far away.

Get out and look for skunk cabbage while you can still see the flowers: you won't be disappointed. Snow won't even kill it at this point, thanks to its thermogenic qualities (it's somewhat of a dragon really), so you have no excuses not to get skunked.

Seriously, go. It's so amazing!