When spring, aside from a calendar date, seems slow to arrive, Mainers can keep calm and look for skunk cabbage. This earliest wildflower, poking up in wet, swampy areas statewide, is a sign that the tide is turning and spring is winning.
Anytime from mid-March too early April, skunk cabbage begins jutting up through the muck. The emerging purple or purplish-green shoot, known as the spathe, typically grows to about eight inches.
A type of modified leaf, the spathe wraps around itself, leaving a small opening. Inside the opening of the hooded spathe is a fleshy, bumpy swelling called a spadix. Tiny male and female flowers dot the spadix.
[image id=”2962545″ size=”full” pos=”center” /]
Bright, lime green leaves appear after the flowers fade, typically in mid-April. The leaves, when crushed, have characteristic skunk odor that gives this plant its common name.
Skunk cabbage, with the Latin name Symplocarpus foetidus, is a member of the Arum family. Several members of this family, including skunk cabbage, have the unique ability to self-generate heat. This ability, known as thermogenesis, is what allows skunk cabbage to bloom early, often melting the surrounding snow and leaving a characteristic bare circle around the plant.
[image id=”2962544″ size=”full” pos=”center” /]
This self-produced heat also warms the interior of the spathe and, along with a rotten meat odor, attracts early spring pollinators. Insects attracted by the smell enter the spathe, become doused in pollen and take advantage of the warmth before moving on to pollinate the next flower. Like hikers on the Appalachian Trail walking from shelter to shelter, these insects move from flower to flower pollinating, warming themselves and gaining strength for the next leg of the journey.
When the bloom of fresh falling snow has faded, and the brown muck and mud of early spring replaces the white winter landscape, newly emerging skunk cabbage brings hope to winter-weary hearts.
Clare Dellwo Cole is a Maine Master Naturalist. She is the creator and curator of the Facebook page Flora and Fauna of Bangor City Forest and Instagram handle @flora_faunabangorcityforest.