Of Skunks and Cabbages

We live just a few miles from the southern-most population of skunk cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus.  These fascinating plants look like cabbage (kind of) and its leaves and flowers give off a strong odor (the skunky part of the name).  The specific name foetidus comes from Latin and means smelly.  Skunk cabbages live along creeks and in swamps across eastern Canada, the northern US east of the Great Plains and as far south as Tennessee and North Carolina.  On an early spring morning, I hiked up an unnamed branch of Swearing Creek.  As I rounded a bend, dozens of bright green plants were emerging from the creek and its soggy banks.  The flowers were finished but some decaying fruits remains. 

A population of skunk cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus, in Piedmont North Carolina

Skunk cabbage is one of the earliest flowering plants in its range with the flowers produced in deep winter.   Snow covers the ground in many places when skunk cabbage flowers.  Its most amazing trick is the flowers can melt their way through snow.  Skunk cabbage uses a special thermogenic type of respiration to raise the flower temperature above that of its surroundings, melting snow and giving off its foul odor.  This smell attracts early emerging flies to act as pollinators.  

Skunk cabbage with decaying spathe and spadix

Skunk cabbage emerging from the water

Spathiphyllum with a flower bearing spadix
and the white, leaf-like spathe

Skunk cabbage is in the family Araceae that also includes Spathiphyllum, a familiar houseplant.   The Araceae produce distinct flowering structures; the spadix and the spathe.  The spadix is an inflorescence, a group of flowers that develop into fruits.  The spadix is surrounded by the leaf-like spathe.  The spathe of skunk cabbage is green with purple stripes. The purple color and strong smell resembles rotting flesh and attracts the fly pollinators.  The largest flower in the world, the titan arum, Amorphophallus titanium, is in the same family with a 10-foot flower, purple spathe, a giant spadix and fetid smell. 

I hope to visit the skunk cabbage site again next winter and find flowers melting their way through snow, in full stench.