Exciting news: the Native Flora Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is expanding by two more acres, more than doubling the space. Think globally, plant locally. (But, erhm, what’s happening to the Rock Garden? I love those erratic glacial boulders, hardy pieces of the mainland.) I was in the 100-year-old original section of NFG the other day, where, in contrast to the nearby showgirly-exuberance of the magnolias (none of them native to our diverse regional habitats), the early spring woods were very quiet indeed. 
But what’s this? Green? The eastern skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) was out, but then this curious plant can actually melt its way through snow — not that snow was an issue locally this year — if it has to. Thermogenic, or heat-producing, plants like this are uncommon. Most plants wait for the air and ground to warm up via the weather — not that that’s been an issue this year, either.
Skunk Cabbage
Published March 23, 2012 Fieldnotes 3 CommentsTags: Brooklyn, Brooklyn Botanic Garden
I lived in Connecticut for some years as a child, and vividly remember the smell of the skunk cabbage in the woods near our house. Now when I smell something skunky while walking in the parks, it’s more likely to be from kids smoking skunk marijuana than skunk cabbage. For a while I thought, from the amount of skunky smells, that my area of Riverside Park was having a serious invasion of the little beasts – but I’ve since been educated and realize that most of what I smelled was pot! Still we DO get skunks in Morningside Heights section of the park. One man told me his dog was sprayed. And Inwood Park, further north, has many. But I digress…
This blog welcomes digressions. I didn’t know we had skunks in Manhattan. I have some more shots of skunk cabbage, which I smelled for the first time today, and frankly I kind of liked it.