SKUNK CABBAGE 1

SKUNK CABBAGE

SPRINGS EARLIEST WILDFLOWER

Spring is wildflower time, rich colors of new blossoms, the return of life. However,

one wildflower arrives with scorn and toils through life unappreciated, the skunk

cabbage. This wildflower rushes into spring before spring is ready for it by generating

their own heat, as much as 20 degree and melts itself through ice and snow, frozen earth,

to sprout it's blossom, a ball cluster called the spadix, covered with a leaf like spathe,

dark purple and green, no more that two inches high, that have a pungent odor. Years ago

it was called foetid hellebore.

Skunk cabbage make it's odor for the same reason other wildflower make a sweet odor. The

bees, butterflies and hummingbirds go to the sweet smelling ones, while the cabbage

attracts ants and beetles. The whole skunk cabbage plant stinks.

Despite the bad smell, American Indians made a meal of the leaves and made several

medicinal uses of it.

The Skunk Cabbage is found near wet soil, swamps and marshes, early in March, but they

lay low and you need to search for them.

Abstract: Herald Palladuium, Michigan, Thursday, March 8, 1990, by Sarett Naturalist,

Mike Campbell.