Symplocarpus foetidus

Eastern Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), commonly known as simply "Skunk Cabbage", is a low growing, foul smelling plant that prefers wetlands. It blooms early in the year. It can be found naturally in eastern North America, with its southern extent to Georgia. It is the only species in the genus, although Western Skunk Cabbage Lysichitum americanum is similar.

Eastern Skunk Cabbages are known to sometimes live hundreds of years, and botanists speculate that a single plant could survive a thousand years or more. They reproduce by hard, pea-sized seeds which fall in the mud and are carried away by animals or by floods.

Its spathe has a mottled purple colour.

Eastern Skunk Cabbages have "contractile roots" which contract after growing into the earth. This pulls the stem of the plant deeper into the mud, so that the plant in effect grows downward, not upward. Each year, the plant grows deeper into the earth, so that older plants are practically impossible to dig up. Only the flowers are visible above the mud, with the leafs and stems burried below.

One of only two known plant species that are homeothermic, that is, able to maintain its own body temperature at a certain level.

External link

• The Truth About Skunk Cabbage from the Monday Garden.