TURNING UP THE HEAT ON YOUR PROPERTY: Skunk cabbage is one of the few native plants capable of generating its own warmth and producing flowers during the cold months

摘要

I admit it. I'm weird. In winter, most plant lovers who live in cool climates content themselves indoors by drooling over the flower photos in the gardening catalogues that appear in mailboxes at this time of year. But not me. I venture outside to search for signs of the skunk cabbage in the tiny bog I created behind my Shelter Island, New York, house. I'm a big admirer of this plant. It stinks and bears no big, beautiful blooms, but it has a lot of moxie. Skunk cabbage, found in wetlands from Manitoba to Maine and south to Georgia, can flower when snow still blankets the ground and ice glazes the bare tree branches. It has been known to bloom inside snowbanks, creating its own ice caves. It can do this because it is one of the few plants capable of generating intense heat.