Skunk Cabbage

It was a gorgeous day today. Blue skies and temperatures about 50 degrees. After work I slipped on a shirt, shorts and running shoes and went out to soak it in. Sunday's seven mile run with Peter, the Religion professor, and Jim, another History professor was hard. Both are quite a bit faster than me, and we took a new route with some monster-sized hills. I finished that run sore and demoralized, with rising doubts about whether I'll be ready for the half-marathon in one month.

But today I felt great, and headed down to the National Road, and ran west for a mile or so before turning back and heading to the reservoir. It seemed as if everyone was heading out to the reservoir on a day like this, and there was much to see. Young calves and lambs were in abundance. Turkey Vultures soared on rising thermals. Canada geese splashed down into farm ponds. Barn cats stretched out in the sun, near the shelter of a tractor. As I ran past the White farm, I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned and there I saw a small black lamb racing me along the tops of a long line of hay rolls. As I watched him leap rather gracefully from the top of one to the next it reminded me of Billy Elliot leaping across the rooftops of Birmingham, England. As he reached the end of the line of hay rolls it became clear to me that Billy was not so much racing me as he was runing toward the safety and security of his mother grazing at the other end. It was nonetheless one of those magical running moments.

When I got to the reservoir I took a cool down walk along the earthen dam, then turned around to discover my departmental colleague Jim stretching on a picnic bench. He had been following me down Shadyside road, and had not quite caught up to me on the hill up to the reservoir. We ran back to town together, chatting about the beauty of the day, problem students and great students, office politics, and the upcoming half-marathon. Once we got back into town he headed home and I ran down to the Jitterbug, for my favorite warm weather drink--a Gilligan--iced coffee with a dash of coconut syrup.

It was such a glorious day that when I got home I couldn't stand to remain indoors as long as there was some sunlight left, so I loaded the dogs into the car and we drove them out to the reservoir. The ground was wet and muddy from a week's worth of rain, but it was great day for going off trail and exploring the woods and marshes, as the shrubs and multiflora had not yet had time to take off and fill in the understory. While the dogs busied themselves with getting thoroughly wet and muddy I explored the edges of the marsh, looking for early signs of spring.

Not surprisingly, I found it in the spathes of skunk cabbage. Some were green, some were wine red, and some a mottled mix of both. The largest were already rising about six inches from the floor. The skunk cabbage is usually the first of the spring flowers. The plant actually generates a substantial amount of heat as it emerges from the earth, and can melt the snow when the snow decides to hang around that long. Their pungent smell was not yet noticeable--though I confess I didn't stick my nose right up to it to see if it was there. The skunk cabbage's flowerhead remains sheltered in the "spathe" leaf for most of the plant's annual growth cycle. It was probably the fact that the flowerhead resembled a hooded head that inspired Thoreau to call the skunk cabbage "the hermit of the bog." By May the oldest plants will be three or four feet wide and almost as tall. By July, the leaves dissolve into a slimy mold, and the dried out fruit/flowerhead is left behind as a woody-looking sphere. In this picture, you can see the new flowerhead sheltered inside the spathe, and last year's nut-like dried-out sphere in the foreground.

The environs of the skunk cabbage are where spring really starts. The remarkable amount of heat they generate draws the season's first insects. The skunk cabbage's smell resembles the decaying meat, and attracts the same kinds of insects that are attracted to carrion. Spiders understand the attraction of heat, and often spin webs across the spathe opening, hoping to get their first meal of the season. Beyond its attraction to insects, there are few creatures interested in eating the bitter fruit of the skunk-cabbage. Some early settlers called it "bear-weed" because they noticed that bears seem to like it. About the only other creature willing to try the skunk weed fruit was Henry David Thoreau, whose passion for botanical observation nearly always incorporated not just the use of his senses of sight, touch and smell, but also taste. In his posthumously published calendar "Wild Fruits," Thoreau writes of the skunk cabbage fruit:

When I carry it home my friends can scarcely guess what fruit it is, but think of pine-apples and the like. After being in the house a week, and becoming wilted and softened, it emits, upon being broken open, an agreeable, sweetish scent, perchance like a banana, which suggests that it may be edible. But a good while after I have tasted it, it bites my tongue.

After an hour or so of mucking about in bogs, examining young skunk cabbage plants, it was time to gather my three muddy mutts, load them in the back of the car, and head home. I look forward to many more of these spring days.