This Eastern Skunk Cabbage plant in our bog is one of the plants that we’ve monitored closely and photographed regularly for several consecutive years. We’ve chosen this April 12, 2021, image to show here because it illustrates the plant’s well-engineered resilience.
The plant clearly is doing well now, despite heavy rains in early April that made the bog waters rise above it, not to mention below-freezing temperatures from time to time:
The purple spathes that contain the plant’s flowers are designed to both capture and circulate outside air and to contain the plant’s own warming heat that is generated internally; they also buffer shocks to the hidden flowers.
The plants’ leaves are outside the spathes, wound tightly into a scroll that will open only when the plant decides that it is time. Some Skunk Cabbage plants in our bog have started unfurling their leaves to allow them to grow, others, such as this, are keeping their leaves tightly furled. Do they know something? (Brooklin, Maine)