60 SYMPLOCARrUS FCETIDUS. SKUNK-CABBAGE. 



however, be more successful. This is one of the many unset- 

 tled questions that will give a zest to the studies of those who 

 desire to observe critically the development of the flower. 



The plant has been called " Skunk-Cabbage " or " Skunk- 

 Weed " from its odor ; but this is most marked after being 

 bruised. If one will bend down over a flower and smell before 

 gathering it, there will be little experienced that is disagreeable. 

 The old Swedish settlers around Philadelphia used to call it 

 " Bear Weed." Bears were abundant among them in those 

 days, and it is said that after coming out from their long win- 

 ter's sleep, they found this early plant a great luxury. It must 

 have been a hot morsel, as the juice is acrid, and is said to 

 possess some narcotic power, while that of the root, when 

 chewed, causes the eyesight to grow dim. Infusions of the 

 plant have been used by some physicians in whooping-cough 

 and dropsy. The plant is found only to the east of the Missis- 

 sippi, chiefly from North Carolina northwards ; and it has no 

 very near relations. Linnaeus thought it a Dracontiiun, under 

 which name it is still referred to by comparatively modern au- 

 thors. Sims refers to it as a Pothos, under which designation the 

 student will yet sometimes meet it ; but Symplocarpus is its now 

 generally accepted name. This is from the Greek, and signifies, 

 " united fruit." If we examine the fruit of the common Indian 

 turnip, we find it a mass of separate (red) berries. In our plant 

 the parts that might have been distinct are so united together 

 as to form but a single, rough, globular mass, in which the seeds 

 are imbedded, and of so peculiar a structure that Nuttall thought 

 the plant viviparous. After separating from the receptacle and 

 becoming scattered through the ground, the seeds are occasion- 

 ally found by laborers or others when digging in the swampy 

 places where they grow, and are generally regarded by them as 

 petrified corn, and as such have often been brought to the writer. 



EXPLANATION or THE PLATE.— i. The plant in flower before the leaves are far advanced. — 

 2. The spathe half cut away to show the spaclix. — 3. Longitudinal section of spadix, 



showing the arrangement of the single flowers on the receptacle. — 4. Individual flowers. 



