ICTODES FRTIDUS. 
Skunk Cabbage. 
PLATE XXIV. 
WD sis is one of our most noticeable plants, 
both from the frequency of its occurrence and the 
peculiarity of its sensible properties. Scarcely a 
swamp or meadow is found in the middle and 
northern parts of the United States in which this 
vegetable may not be discovered at a distance, es- 
pecially in the spring season, by its large tufts of 
rank, crowded leaves. Its singular flowers are 
among the first which break from the ground, 
after the rigours of winter, appearing in different 
latitudes, from February to April. The vegeta- 
tion is rapid, so that in most instances the fruit is 
ripe and the leaves wholly decayed before the end 
of August. From this precocity of the plant to- 
gether with the depth to which the roots pene- 
trate the earth, it seems calculated to bear the 
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