The speckled hoods (spathes) of eastern skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) have been emerging from the watery bogs here for about a week, which is a little early. The cluster shown here was photographed yesterday morning.
Skunk cabbages are among the first wild plants to emerge and flower during our spring. They protect themselves from the icy conditions by generating their own heat through a process called thermogenesis. Their tiny flowers emerge inside the spathes, growing from a fleshy internal bulb called a spadix and usually not seen by humans. These flowers produce a gagging odor that smells like rotting meat to us, but apparently smells delicious to many pollinating insects that crawl into the spathes.
The large, beautiful skunk cabbage leaves usually start to mature in May here, but it looks like they may be earlier this year. Here’s a May 25, 2022, image:
You should be careful not to barge through these leaves and break them, unless you’re looking for a way to keep people at a distance. (Primary image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 18, 2023.)