plants of note: skunk cabbage

I was googling random plants (as one does) and somehow stumbled onto Skunk Cabbage. But what hooked me was one of the neatest plant features I had never heard of before. Skunk Cabbage can make it’s own heat. This allows it to bloom while snow is still on the ground. The next course of action was, naturally, to find a specimen.

Luckily for me we had a group trip planned up to NC, Asheville to be specific, with some of our good friends. I used iNaturalist to look for sightings near where we planned on being and there were a few promising locations. When they day finally came we set off, my buddy Michael fully onboard. These plants apparently like wet/muddy areas and thats where we eventually found them. Sadly all the blooms had already disappeared for the season and I was so excited I only took one picture.

Still, my first plant mission to find a specific plant was a success and I will be doing something along those lines again soon.

I hesitate to upload photos I haven’t personally taken but a quick google search yields some pretty cool results.