A mile
and a half north of town is a low land area, where the reservoir from Moore
State Park just to the west empties into a wetland basin. It is here in the
autumn that I first look to see the colors change in the swamp maples and scrub
oak that border the lower ground.
It is
also here that I’ve seen the first signs of skunk cabbage poking up through any
remnant ice or snow, greenish yellow shoots protruding upward with a slight
unfurling that will become the spreading leaves. I understand the these shoots
give off notable heat to aid melting any early spring snow and to hasten their
rapid upward growth. This is why you often see just the shoot tips surrounded
by ice in certain hollows in the wooded lowlands.
The
flower that develops later is the reason for the name, for unlike the perfumes
of so many spring and early summer blossoms, the skunk cabbage has a flower
which is both unexceptional looking and malodorous, the latter all the better
to attract early insect pollinators like flies to the smell of decay.
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