It’s only February, but already signs of spring are emerging. The red-winged blackbirds are calling in the marsh, I saw a honeybee on Saturday pollinating the crocuses in my yard, and the skunk cabbage are flowering in forested wetland areas.  Skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) flowers, and the structures that surround them, are fairly strange looking as far as flowers go.  The outer sheath, called a spathe, is purplish with yellow-green streaks and is roughly teardrop-shaped with an opening where the two ends of the sheath don’t quite come together.  Although this is the only portion of skunk cabbage that many people notice, the actual flowers are hidden inside.  The tiny flowers, each approximately 1/4 inch in diameter, are located on a knob-like spike inside, called a spadix.  These small flowers have no petals, which would normally make up the showy part of the flower in most plants. Instead, they have four, fleshy, yellow-colored sepals, between which the stamens and style will develop.

Although we have had very mild weather the last couple weeks, in a winter when there is still snow on the ground in February, the developing floral sheath of the skunk cabbage can actually produce so much internal heat that it can melt the snow around it. This ability allows the skunk cabbage to be one of the first wildflowers of the year, and in fact, has been known to flower on Cape Cod as early as late January.

Finally, the skunk cabbage gets its name from the fetid, skunk-like odor produced by the plant, which along with the heat-production ability described above, helps attract flies and gnats to pollinate the tiny flowers.