Framingham Nature Blog - Blooming Skunk Cabbage

The first native plant to bloom in the spring is the eastern skunk cabbage. It had adapted perfectly to bloom in freezing temperatures, and under the snow. This happens in Framingham in early march. The skunk cabbage is made up of 2 bulbs. one becomes the flower, while the other becomes the leaves. The leafy part is the light green one below and the flower is the purple part.

The first and most strange adaptation is it's unique ability to generate body heat. This prevents it's cells from freezing and melts a patch of snow around it. This can raise the temperature inside the flower up to 20 degrees. This adaptation is what allows it to bloom about 2 months before plants will normally bloom.

There is an obstacle though, as the insects normally required to pollinate flowers are still in hibernation. The eastern skunk cabbage will not attract insects with nectar, and instead attracts non-hibernating scavenger insects like blowflies and dermestid beetles. It's color and smell are designed to mimic a rotting carcass, so that insects will land on it to eat the non existant meat and cover themselves with pollen.

I first saw these at nobscot on Feb. 24th, the day when most of February's snow melted. They had clearly been growing under the snow. I chose to put the topic under March though, because they are most visible now. If you want to find one of these, find a tree shaded stream or bog in New England. The skunk cabbage is a water loving, shade tolerant plant.

Below are what they looked like on the 19th, much deeper purple, and opened up.

By the 28th, some of them had started leafing out. Some of the Skunk cabbages on the sudbury river were a few week ahead, but i am following the Nobscot population. These leaves are what give it a cabbage like appearance. Some flowers are also producing chlorophyll, turning them greenish.