Highlights

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The ground may still be frozen in spots and some snow may still fall, but with the rapidly lengthening days and therefore more focused sunlight …on those rare winter days when the sky is not cloudy and grey …fat, green skunk cabbage buds push up out of the sun and plant-warmed swamp mud.

Protected inside each emerging purple and green mottled skunk cabbage bud, botanically called a spathe, is the delicate flower cluster, called a spadix.

The skunk cabbage is found in swamps and wetlands from Quebec and Ontario southward to Georgia and Missouri and is a member of the arum family.

Within the arums are a number of species that are thermogenic. As mentioned, thermogenic plants have the ability to produce heat which allows them to shorten their period of dormancy thereby giving them a competitive advantage by allowing them to start growing while competing wetland species are still dormant in winter mode. The warmth also disperses the flower odor and encourages pollinating insects to hang around the spadix longer.

As the hood-like spathe unfolds, it exposes the pinkish-yellow skunk cabbage flowers which give off a carrion-like odor. The large leaves emerge weeks after the flowers.

Though the temperature may be hovering around the freezing mark one may notice swarms of small carrion flies and gnats hovering about the flowers. Attracted by the strong smell and warmth these small insects enter the sheltered spathe and in moving about ensure pollination.

The skunk cabbage is not a “skunk” …nor is it a “cabbage.” Bruise or cut the cabbage-like foliage and a pungent skunky odor is released. The odor given off by the skunk cabbage is nowhere near as powerful as that of its namesake, but is unpleasant enough to serve as a warning to creatures large and small that although abundant, green and succulent, the leaves and other plant parts contain calcium oxalic crystals and cause, in most animals, excruciating pain if chewed and swallowed.

Although shunned by most critters, a few species can eat skunk cabbage with apparent impunity. Black bears, fresh out of hibernation, feed extensively on skunk cabbage.  We have watched wild turkeys, in the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve (SMB), eating young skunk cabbage leaves as they walk along foraging through wetlands in early spring. Wood ducks eat skunk cabbage seeds in the fall and our September 2011 “Bioreserve Fauna of the Month,” the great grey leopard slug, feeds on decaying skunk cabbage leaves in late fall and the following spring.

The skunk cabbage grows from a thick perennial starchy rhizome buried deep in the swamp muck. Like many other arum species these roots were gathered by Indians and then dried and ground into flour. The flour would then be stored for a minimum of six months to allow the poisonous calcium oxalic crystals to breakdown and dissipate before the flour was used.

Skunk cabbage was also used extensively as a medicinal plant by various Indian tribes and Indian herbalists traded and sold various skunk cabbage based medicines to early European settlers. Reportedly it was used as an anti-spasmodic to treat persistent coughs, bronchitis, asthma and similar maladies.

Take a walk to a wooded wetland near you and check out this hardy New England native

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INFO ALERT - March in coastal Massachusetts ...spring comes slooooooowly!

Alien snowdrops, originally from Europe and adjacent southwest Asia, often escape gardens and invade open woodlands. They usually make their appearance in early March and occasionally pop up as early as late February.

When thinking of early spring flowers, many people think of crocuses. Once again, an alien flower that often goes feral. Originally from central Europe, Middle East and central Asia. 

Spicebush is a native, aromatic, deciduous shrub found growing from damp soil along the edges of wooded swamps and bogs under light shade on the edge of the forest canopy. In early spring, March, spicebush begins to bloom. The flowers appear first, in tiny yellow clusters, well before the leaves. 

Sunset/Moonlight Ride  - First Spring Ride!