This unusual all-yellow colony of eastern skunk cabbage spathes that we reported on last month has not (yet?) changed colors or become mottled. As you probably know, these pixie-hatted spathes contain the flowers that allow the plants to propagate.
I haven’t been able to find a reliable explanation of how the color yellow could dominate all others that usually are found on the plants’ spathes. Perhaps the reason is not only biological, but also meteorological due to effects climate change. I’ll keep monitoring these unusual plants to see if they change color or their leaves are different from the norm. Scientific explanations are invited.
Prior to this year, I had only seen eastern skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) spathes that were a deep red/purple color or mottled in various colors. In fact, those are the colors of all of the spathes near the yellow ones:
Western skunk cabbage (Lysichiton americanus) has all-yellow spathes, but that is a distinctly different species. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 3 [yellow] and 4 [red, mottled], 2023.)