Skunk Cabbage

The spring skunk cabbage is now in full bloom and is gracing the wet swamp below the blackberry vines.
A perennial beauty, the skunk cabbage emerges from the mud to give us a chance to ponder the warmer days to come.
A trip down memory lane reminds my of my Aunt Julia and her love of skunk cabbage or maybe it was the tolerance for skunk cabbage. Duly named after the scent, the yellow spring horns with green centers and brighter green leaves are tempting to pick. They grow in the wetter areas of the swales, where the tussock and bunch grass grows.
The bright color calls out to kids to gather the frond-like wide petals into bouquets, which is just what Aunt Julia’s children did one day, they gathered and gathered and gathered until they had a huge bunch.
By the time they got their treasure back to the house as a surprise for their mother, the kids smelled like both skunk and swamp muck. Their smiles were as bright at the golden horns they bestowed on their surprised mother. There were so many in the huge bunch that they would not fit in one vase so the house was filled with bouquets set up in every room.
Aunt Julia thanked each child for the beautiful, long-lasting, odoriferous gift but also told the story that the glorious blooms would last so much longer if they were left to grow rather than pick them. Each kid got a mid-week bath that day, a highly unusual treat as they were as happy as guppies splashing away the muck and a bit of the smell.
Weeks after the blooms faded out and the vases emptied of their contents, the house still smelled like skunk cabbage.
That was the beginning of the many trips that the kids took their mother out to the swamp to see the bouquets in their natural habitat. Aunt Julia thanked the kids each time she was shown natures bounty left in the wild grateful that the smell was left far from the house.