Secrets for the Summer

Skunk Cabbage seems like such an awful name for one of the first plants of the spring. Supposedly the plant smells of rotten meat, although I can't verify this theory as I've smelled several and never found one that smelled of anything other than fresh earthiness.

All winter long the Skunk Cabbage have waited in the bog for a moderately warm spring day so the secrets held within could be shone to the early spring sun. These plants will grab as much spring sun as they possibly can in the coming weeks before the summer's canopy of trees overhead shut out all that solar energy for the summer.      .

The Beauty of Skunk Cabbage

An amazing wetland plant is skunk cabbage. It attracts its pollinators by producing a scent of rotting meat. I have not personally experienced this aroma even though I have spent several years photographing the beauty of the plant coming up through the early spring bog.

This plant creates its own heat source as it comes up through the ground, even as the snow lies on the frozen earth, allowing it to become one of the first bloomers of the year.      

But the true wonder of this plant, for me, is the beauty of its swirls in red and green reflecting in the bog water.  And the treasure it keeps hidden in its center.