Sunday, May 2, 2004

Skunk Cabbage 3 I'm running a bit behind, and am posting photos taken on 4/27. Didn't I say they have a robust growth rate? (Compare in my Walkabouts category.) (Correction: my first SC picture was taken on 4/9 though it wasn't posted until 4/16.) Each leaf is over a foot wide now. Standing in the middle of this sea of green is like floating inside a gigantic oxygen tank. Highly recommended. I also wanted to follow up on my nectarine flowers, but alas, they did not consummate. The fairies will have to go hungry till next year. 11:18:19 AM    comment []

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

A Colony of Purple Trillim Finally we meet. Last year I only saw your off-springs, the beaded seeds, and the large three leaves that gave me the clue. I had heard about you, the Wake Robin--how you transform the forest floor into a shade garden Gartrude would envy, how abundant you used to be, how you die at an innocent hand picking only the flower or the leaf, how rare it has become to find a sight of you. So you can only imagine my excitement when I found you all green here last summer, the whole colony of you! I was dreaming about you through the cold winter days, imagining the deep reddish purple of your petals. But alas, this spring was a strange one, alternating cold with warm and wind and rain. I know I only live a short car-ride away from you, but you know, humans are strange, we get trapped in an inertia when we are working even if it's making us miserable. I almost missed you after waiting for a whole year--fancy that. Really, what could possibly be more important to me? 11:30:58 PM    comment []

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Skunk Cabbage 2 Not all that different from my first reporting on SC, but Phil from Perils of Caffeine in the Evening kindly uploaded a picture of Skunk Cabbage on this page, and I felt compelled to follow up on this. The picture he took was clearly different from what we, the Northeasterners, know as Skunk Cabbage. Further research (well, just one click) revealed that the Westerners and Easterners refer to two completley different genera of plants as Skunk Cabbage! (Ay, there is the Continental divide.) I would not have known this if it weren't for Phil, for none of my Northeastern plant ID books mention it. He might have saved me from a terrible embarrassment at an American Skunk Cabbage Association conference. 1:17:59 PM    comment []

Friday, April 16, 2004

Skunk Cabbage 1 Fading flower and new leaves of Skunk Cabbage Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) is one of the best reasons for living in the country. I had never heard of such a plant before moving here to New Paltz (I hadn't heard of many plants, period), and it took me a few years before I cared to look for the source of its name - the flower that emits the odor of rotten meat. But it didn't take much for me to adore the vitality of its beautiful leaves, practically unfurling in front of my eyes over the course of a month or so. There are many swampy areas where I live. In the winter all is solid and silent. But even when everything seems to be completely frozen, around the end of February, an observant eye (and nose) will find changes in the color, texture and smell of the snow and ice. In March, you find activities of tiny insects - snow fleas and little flies. It is these flies that the flowers of skunk cabbage attract by their smell in order to facilitate pollination long before emergence of bees. When I first read the description of the odor, I was very curious. I had to wait patiently till the following March to venture out onto the frozen marsh, locate holes in the snow which were created by the heat-giving flowers, bury half of my face in the snow, to get close and smell the flowers. Surprise - they didn't smell like rotten meat! They are not exactly bouquets of roses, but it's not a bad smell. Very earthy, ripe and a bit musky without any sharpness. What caused the discrepancy from its book description is that it is very subtle. Subtlety is not what you expect from rotten meat. The flowering stage is for the "advanced" fan, which, once discovered, becomes one of the high marks of early spring. I can now recognize the faint smell from quite afar. But it is the leaves that still take my breath away, every year. Their leathery shine, robust growth rate, and deep, fresh green color - everything about the plant is dynamic. They transform the marsh floor from dark brown mud to the sea of green that evokes the land where dinosaurs once roamed. It is heartbreaking to see such habitats dwindling due to the urban sprawl. But the vitality of Skunk Cabbage reminds me that they will certainly be standing long after we are gone. I find somewhat a morbid solace in that, to know that we are endangering most of all ourselves. At the same time I cannot escape a sense of profound sadness to imagine a world once again full of natural beauty yet not a soul of human to witness it. Skunk Cabbage in its habitat. I will update this picture throughout this spring. 11:53:39 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 Keiko Sono. Last update: 5/3/04; 2:28:17 PM.