IO 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE. 



in this climate, they should be ashamed 

 of themselves. Anybody, anything, can 

 bloom with favorable surroundings. 

 Our Eastern arum can bloom in spite of 

 obstacles. If the emblematic, rather 

 than the aesthetic, were the point of view, 

 we would decorate our pulpits with the 

 skunk cabbage rather than with your 

 calla lilies." 



Perhaps my Calif ornian was justified 

 in being puzzled to kn< >w whether he had 

 met a philosopher or a lunatic. It was 

 the former if he took everything into 

 consideration; the latter, if he judged 

 only from his own point of view. 



If honeybees in April could philoso- 

 phize they would regard human beings, 

 in shunning the Symplocarpus, as luna- 

 tics. For to the bee, the pollen of the 

 skunk cabbage in early spring is vastly 

 important. It starts the brood-rearing 

 a little before any supplementary help 

 comes from the red maples. 



Cut off the front of one of these arum 

 spathes, turn it down and see the won- 

 derful, short-stalked spadix entirely cov- 

 ered with perfect flowers crowded to- 

 gether in a mass of bloom. What a store 

 of good things, — really a treasure house 

 from which the bee takes a few of the 

 "gems A and does work that must be 

 done, which the plant unaided cannot 

 do. The bee does a great and powerful 

 deed for small pay. In exchange for a 

 few grains of pollen, the plant will soon 

 show a liberal fruitage in a globular 

 mass of botanical socialism. Hence the 

 name — symploka, connection, and kar- 

 pus, fruit. The fruitage is connected to- 

 gether into a great compound ball that 

 ripens in September. At that time it 

 stands boldly upright, taking every pos- 

 sible advantage of the sunshine and of 

 the air currents in bringing to full rip- 



ening and perfection the bulb-like seeds 

 within the fleshy globe. 



Gradually old age comes creeping on, 

 and death approaches. Slowly the ma- 

 tured plant bows to the inevitable, and 

 when the cold weather arrives, falls, as 

 we do, perhaps, and after "earth to 

 earth," for a time, rises, as we shall, re- 

 vived and newly created. The bulblets 

 go floating and bounding away on pool, 

 pond and brook, to colonize other 

 marshes and to beautify other mud flats 

 with our eastern "calla lilies." 



As you go on suburban walks in early 

 spring, look for these sturdy little life- 

 messengers, the advance guards of a 

 floral army of Symplocarpus, the skunk 

 cabbage, universally despised, because 

 universally unobserved or ignored. In 

 its way the Symplocarpus is as beauti- 

 ful as the spiny fruit of the Malayan 

 Durian; and if you neglect and despise 

 the flower of the one, you would, even 

 in these utilitarian days, probably reject 

 and condemn the fruit of the other, — 

 "the delicious Durian with its intolerable 

 odor." If you ridicule me and other 

 botanists, for admiring the skunk cab- 

 bage, to be consistent, when you travel 

 to the Malay Archipelago, you must dis- 

 dain the luscious contents of the Durian 

 fruit, and ridicule those, who, with spoon 

 in hand, although perhaps at arm's 

 length, devour the vegetable custard, 

 and, as they cry for more, call it food fit 

 for the gods. 



The seeds of the Symplocarpus will, 

 as you investigate their complex struc- 

 ture, make you a better botanist, and, as 

 you learn of their courage, their sturdi- 

 ness, their ability to overcome obstacles, 

 they will send you from the marsh a 

 stronger, better, more hopeful man or 

 woman. And that will not be the least 

 important part of their teaching.. 



