The purple skunk cabbage spathes (Symplocarpus foetidus) have been emerging from the waters in our bog this week. The first image here, taken this morning, is of a cluster in our bog that we’ve been cataloging photographically several times a week for four years.
Skunk cabbages are among the first wild plants to flower during our spring. However, they flower inside the spathe from a fleshy bulb called a spadix. These flowers produce a gagging odor that smells like rotting meat to us, but apparently smells delicious to pollinating insects.
The large, beautiful skunk cabbage leaves usually start to come in May here. You should be careful not to barge through them, unless you like being confronted with an odor similar to skunk spray.
By June, the plants are in regal form. Here’s an image of the plant shown above taken last summer:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 3, 2022, and June 21, 2021.)