Spring thrusts from the quagmire

Where I live, in Columbus, Ohio, it's been one tough long winter. A blanket of snow has hidden the earth's crust all winter it seems. February's snowfall was a record, and there's still a foot or so of the white stuff cloaking everything on this first day of March.

I like snow and winter, but am totally ready for the end. Needing a major botanical fix - and desperately seeking some sign of winter's end! - off I went to a local spring today at lunchtime. Bingo! Our first true wildflower of spring was in flawless condition in all of its fleshy elegance.

The liver-spotted horns of Skunk-cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus, thrust from the mire of a central Ohio spring. It's right on schedule, a blanket of snow not being any impediment to its growth.

This plant is THE true harbinger of spring, although another wildflower in the parsley family (Apiaceae) carries that common name. The skunks at this locale were all in fine form, and had probably started blooming a week or two back.

The bizarre fleshy hood of a Skunk-cabbage is called a spathe, and it conceals an odd clublike structure known as a spadix, visible in this shot. Those are the tiny yellowish flowers peppered over the spadix, each with a full complement of pollen. Early-emerging insects such as stoneflies pollinate skunks. The vining plant with opposite leaves is Moneywort, Lysimachia nummularia, which is an abundant Eurasian species of damp areas whose leaves are semi-evergreen.

Even where snow still covered the springy saturated soil, the skunks still pushed forth. This photo clearly shows an odd talent exhibited by Skunk-cabbage, but few other plants. Through a process of cellular respiration, this species produces heat: thermogenesis. Actively growing skunks may be many degrees warmer than surrounding soil, thus warming their immediate environment and enabling the plant to push through frozen snow crusts like a hot knife through butter.

Take heart, when the Skunk-cabbage are in bloom, we are in winter's final death throes, and the rush of spring and all its life is hot on the skunk's heels.