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What's blooming in Bath, Highland
BY CHARLES GARRATT • STAFF WRITER
 | | One of the very earliest flowers to bloom in the Highlands is skunk cabbage. The flowers pop up in bogs, marshy areas and along creeks in late winter. A mid-winter warm spell brought many out early this year and a later freeze scorched the tips. Normally the skunk cabbage can endure cold weather because it makes its own heat. |
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CREEK BANKS AND MARSHES - With the first weekend of Maple Festival approaching and the possibility of snow in the forecast, it is difficult to imagine wildflowers blooming in the Highlands.
The spunky skunk cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus, already has its tiny yellow flowers up where flies and beetles can find them carefully protected from the cold in a thick brownish-purple hood. The hood is so effective at protecting the flowers, skunk cabbage can often be seen peeking up through snow.
Though mostly overlooked by all but the most avid wildflower enthusiast, skunk cabbage flowers are among the most amazing of North American wildflowers. The "flower" that is easily visible is a modified leaf or bract called the spathe.
 | | The part of the skunk cabbage flower that is most visible is not really the flower at all, but rather a fleshy leaf-like bract which protects the flowers. The tiny flowers are inside the outer part of the flower called the spathe. |
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Skunk cabbage is in the arum family like its better know cousin, Jack-in-the-pulpit. The green, hooded spathe of Jack-in-the-pulpit also protects its small flowers and helps attract insects to pollinate the flowers.
The name, skunk cabbage, comes from one of the methods the flowers use to let flies and beetles know it is mating time- mating time for the flower that is. While not exactly like the perfume of a skunk, it is distinctly rotten.
Most people find the aroma of skunk cabbage unpleasant. But not many of the late winter and early spring insects wandering around looking for the victims of winter. The rotten smell of the flower is just what they are looking for, but not what they find inside.
Skunk cabbage has another secret weapon to lure early insects and protect itself from cold nights. Biologist Roger Knutson discovered skunk cabbage flowers produce heat. They are warm-blooded, so to speak.
For a period of 12 to 14 days, a skunk cabbage flower can maintain an internal temperature an average of 36 degrees above the outside air temperature. Thus the little flowers live in a heated, hooded house.
In addition to the distinct smell, insects like the warm, cozy little stream-side cottage offered by the skunk cabbage. In exchange for comfy lodging, the insects spread pollen from plant to plant, assuring a new generation of skunk cabbage seeds.
Skunk cabbage roots are a spring favorite of bears just coming out of hibernation. Bears will tear through a patch of skunk cabbage, digging out the roots, as a spring tonic of sorts.
Most people notice skunk cabbage by the large cabbage-like leaves which emerge in early spring and last through mid-summer. Native Americans knew how to treat the leaves so they could be smoked like tobacco.
While skunk cabbage flowers can produce heat and endure cold for a few weeks, they are not immune to a sustained or deep hard freeze. This year, a mid-winter warm spell brought skunk cabbage flowers out as early as January in some sunny, exposed locations.
Sub-zero temperatures bit the tips of most flowers visible now and killed many others. The skunk cabbage is prepared for such events. Below the surface, stacked up like passengers for a bus, are generations of flowers waiting to emerge, year after year.
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